Superman vs Goku: Rematch in Metropolis
by puiwaihin
Summary: Goku is brought to the DC Universe to fight against Superman. Twice. AU.  Sequel to: "Goku vs. Superman: Confrontation on New Namek"
1. Chapter 1: Lex Luthor's Revenge

**Superman vs. Goku: Rematch in Metropolis**

**Notes on copyright issues:** The characters Goku, Krillin, Number 18, Gohan, Goten, Trunks, Gotenks, and Piccolo as well as the Namek race are the original creations of Akira Toriyama. "Superman" is a DC Comics property originally created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. All other characters appearing in this story are DC comics characters belonging to DC comics and the respective artists who created them. This work of "fan fiction" is an original story, however the characters used in the story belong to the aforementioned parties.

**Chapter 1: Lex Luthor's Revenge**

Down on a peaceful planet known as Earth, a short man in a fine white suit who had thick brown hair and a large, bushy mustache lay down on his back looking up into a sky that was a clear blue. Beside him sat a woman with short blond hair and eyes the exact color of blue topaz. She was looking up too. Neither was looking at the puffy clouds floating by nor the birds in the air.

Anyone close enough to see their eyes would notice that their pupils were dilated and their eyes were darting back and forth across the sky. Occasionally, the pair would simultaneously tilt their heads to watch another part of the sky. Any casual observer looking up above them would wonder what it was that they were looking at. But then they'd hear the thunder and start to notice tiny flashes of light. Who would guess they were watching a battle happening at such speed and such a distance that few beings could follow its progress?

High above the peaceful Earth, the Z Fighters responsible for keeping it peaceful were in a desperate fight. The mighty Namekian hero known as Piccolo was struggling to keep himself relevant in a battle of super beings that had long ago outstripped him in strength, speed, and power. His green muscles corded and tensed as they snaked around in angles that would be anatomically impossible for a human. But every attack he made, no matter how well timed and how well executed was defeated almost before it began.

With him, the young duo of Goten and Trunks were fused into a being of power beyond imagination: Gotenks. Yet the youth fought recklessly, their power often wasted in flashy displays and his attacks were often predictable, despite the occasional flash of insane creativity. What was worse, their over-eagerness to power up all the way to Super Saiyan 3 made his every mistake more costly, as each blow that landed on them drained more and more of his energy. Their fusion would last thirty minutes, but their energy would not last even that long.

Joining those two (or three, however you want to look at it) was the tall and competent Gohan. His mystically enhanced powers were equal to Gotenks, despite the two younger saiyans having greatly increased in power. Gohan's skills were better developed, combining aspects of both his father's and Piccolo's fighting styles. Despite this greater competence, Gohan was ineffective in his attacks, never taking any attack to the same extremes that the other fighters were willing to go.

"Come on, Gohan! You know what is at stake here! If you don't give it all you've got there's no way we can win! Think of the consequences!" Piccolo shouted.

To his credit, Gohan did try to follow his old mentor's instructions. He pushed himself to the edge of what he thought he could possibly do. Unfortunately for the three Z-Fighters, to stand a chance of winning he would have needed to go beyond the edge of what he thought possible to a whole new level of power and capability.

That was not to be. Instants later, a sharp knee caught the saiyan warrior in the stomach making his eyes bulge out. Piccolo, trying to spare the boy his next blow, rushed in but was felled by a powerful chop to the neck that sent the far weaker super Namekian to the ground in a heap. Gotenks immediately moved in to pick up the slack in an all out attack, their moves coming on furiously and relentlessly, buying time for Gohan to recover and join the fight. But that was exactly what their opponent wanted.

Gotenks's onslaught was met with a perfect defense that turned the fused duo's most powerful strikes harmlessly aside while the force of each block from their opponent was nearly as effective as an offensive strike. The young saiyan soon found themselves bleeding massive amounts of energy. In the short time it took Gohan to recover his breath and rejoin the offensive, their opponent had nearly exhausted the fused being.

The battle continued to rage for a minute, a minute in which innumerable strikes and counterstrikes were launched and repelled too fast for the eye to see. With Gotenks pushing his capabilities and Gohan not holding back, the battle reached its most intense point. But they could not maintain that pace and their attack started to lag.

Gohan and Gotenks never saw the blows that ended the fight. One second they were about to attack their opponent, the next they were pulling themselves out of a pair of craters where they had impacted the Earth. Piccolo managed to recover enough to fly over to his fallen team mates. "Come on, guys, get up!" The two struggled to rise to their feet, but then collapsed again.

"It's over, Piccolo," came the voice of the super being who had just defeated the three of them.

"NO!" Piccolo protested in vain. "No, it can't be!"

The sound of laughter from behind made Piccolo turn around.

"Yep. You lost, Piccolo," Krillin declared. He stood with a grin on his face as his wife, Number 18, walked up behind him.

"Sorry, but a bet's a bet," Goku said, dropping from the air to land in front of his son and tossed him a senzu bean. He had a couple more for the Goten and Trunks as well, but they'd need to return to their individual states before miraculous healing beans would be effective.

"It was a foolish bet," 18 chastised with a derisive toss of her short blond hair. "The three of you can't handle Goku for a full thirty minutes. You'd need Vegeta and Uub to make it a fair bet. There was nothing to gain and so much to lose."

"Male pride," Krillin laughed. "You guys just can't stand the thought that Goku is that much above you, so you got suckered into that bet. I gave up my pride a long time ago," Krillin added. Number 18 glared at him. "I mean, I gave up trying to always one-up Goku. The wife and daughter here are all the pride I need!" Krillin looked over at his wife, hoping the former android was mollified. She just rolled her eyes at him, but he'd take it.

"Yep, now it's time to go eat," Goku exclaimed excitedly. Piccolo groaned. "West City Royal Restaurant. All I can eat and you guys are paying the bill."

Gohan, Piccolo, Trunks, and Goten all groaned together.

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><p>.<p>

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><p>Far across time and space, beyond the boundaries between realities and universes, another man in a white suit stood looking up at the sky. Beside him was a blond haired woman not too dissimilar looking to Number 18, but with her hair tied back in a pony tail and a pair of glasses on her face. She, too, was looking up in the sky. Of course, everyone was looking at the sky at that moment.<p>

High above the city of Metropolis, the blurring form of a man dressed in blue and red sped from point to point destroying missiles out from the middle of the air. Once again, Superman was saving the day. Lex Luthor clenched his fists together in a poor attempt not to allow his frustration show.

He was supposed to be the one saving the city today. His LexCorp Defense Laser should have targeted those missiles and disabled them. But Lex couldn't resist the chance to destroy his nemesis with the weapon when he had seen him in the sky just before the missile attack. Knowing the Kryptonian had just been exposed to powerful doses of kryptonite, being the one responsible for the kryptonite in the first place, Lex had fired his laser at the Man of Steel believing the radiation at its core, so similar to that of a red sun, had a chance of destroying his foe forever. But, the hero had used his heat ray vision to overpower the laser, destroying it, and was now preventing the missile attack.

Inside, Lex was furious. He had spent months creating a belief in a false terrorist group who would be responsible for the attack. He had personally guaranteed the citizens of Metropolis that his defense laser would be there to save the people should, God forbid, something happen to Superman. He had made sure something had happened to Superman before ordering the attack. But now it was Superman who was getting all of the glory. It had to be intentional. Superman had to be doing this just to spite him.

"Oh, Mr. Luthor," his companion lamented, "all our hard work…"

Lex looked at his companion for a brief moment. She thought any of this was her doing? He had used her to achieve his ends. That did not make her part owner of his scheme. It made her a tool. Her eyes widened as he plunged a knife into her unsuspecting heart. Tools should be disposed of when you were finished with them.

Lex Luthor smiled at the irony that his "partner" would not be saved by Superman because she had helped him keep the hero too busy saving the city to notice her murder. Slowly her blood began to pool beneath her. Satisfied that there would be no rescue for her, Lex turned to exit the alleyway they were in.

He found his way blocked by a towering caped figure.

Lex Luthor took an involuntary step backwards. Then he regained his composure. "What are you doing here?" Lex asked, forcing a hint of irritation into his voice.

The figure was powerfully built, his muscular body covered in a skin-tight white suit that matched his short-cropped hair. An olive green cape with pointed horn-like protrusions rising at his shoulders flowed down his back, with matching boots and armored bracers. His collars and chest were a vibrant yellow, with an emerald center.

"I've come to make a deal, Lex," the being spoke with a smile. "You should be happy. Our last deal turned out quite well for you, don't you think?"

"You already have my soul, Neron. Since I'm not dead and it's doubtful I even have a soul, I don't see what more we have to discuss." Lex moved to walk past the powerful being. He didn't truly expect to get by the creature. Neron was the demon responsible for restoring him to life when he was moments away from dying of cancer. A being such as this would be a match for virtually anyone, perhaps even Superman. Walking away as if the demon had nothing he wanted was a negotiating strategy.

Neron knew it for the ruse it was. But he didn't care. He was an ancient being, one of the arch-devils of Hell. Recent struggles had lost him a number of souls he had managed to acquire, and the soul of Lex Luthor was one which he dearly wanted to regain.

"As you said, I already have your soul, Lex. What is there more for you to lose? But I have much to offer you." Neron, King of Hate, watched as the mortal turned around to face him again.

"I'm a busy man. State your 'deal' and don't waste my time with theatrics."

Neron walked over to the dead woman Lex had just killed. Her soul was already his. He let his foot soak in the blood that was rapidly turning darker. "I know what it is you want most of all. I could offer you greater wealth. I could offer you power. That might even tempt you. But above all else, I know you want revenge on Superman. I can give it to you."

The flash of interest in Lex Luthor's eyes was all the demon needed to know he had a deal. "What are the terms?" the mortal asked him.

"I have heard of a being from another universe, a being with so much power that he easily defeated Superman the last time they fought. I will bring this being to your world for you to use as a weapon against Superman."

Lex gave a hmph of disgust. "I've _made_ beings capable of defeating Superman. Parasite, Metallo, and Bizzaro have all knocked him around. But in the end they've all failed. Why don't you kill him for me?"

"Yes, but your creations are either copies of Superman's power, or they rely on being able to weaken Superman. There are reasons I cannot kill Superman outright on this mortal plane. But the one I can bring to this world would not have those restrictions."

"And what is it that you want in return?" Lex asked.

Neron grinned. Here was the true genius of this bargain. "In exchange for my bringing this being to this world, all I ask is that you have this being end Superman's existence."

Lex looked at the demon. "And if I somehow fail, all I would lose would be my soul, which you already have." Lex let himself ponder the demon's offer. In the end, curiosity and the opportunity to destroy Superman won out.

"Deal."


	2. Chapter 2: A Hero's Dark Side

**Chapter 2: A Hero's Dark Side**

Goku sat at the head of a long row of tables in West City Royal Restaurant. Long damask tablecloths embroidered with silver threading covered the length of the banquet tables, upon which were set platter after platter of delectable gourmet dishes. There were large, crispy roast duck with crispy brown skin, plates of flat pasta covered in rich marinara with chunks garlic and mushrooms, enormous plates of steamed fish sliced open to reveal blended herbs flowing in the dish's natural juices. The entire length of the table was covered with enough food to feed a small village, and chefs stood by to bring more should the table's supply be exhausted.

The chefs were going to be busy. Goku was hungry. Piccolo, Gohan, Goten, and Trunks were going to regret losing that bet. Of course, the real reason he had made the bet with his friends and family members was not to get a free meal. Truth be told, with his ties to Capsule Corporation, he really didn't have to think about money ever again. His real purpose was to inspire them to battle him with all their might, to give him a real sort of challenge and push his training to new heights. He had been inspired by his last battle a year past, a battle with a being of power named Superman.

Goku was sitting at the table with golden hair flowing down his back, an aura shining about him. His muscles were bulging from all the extra power he was holding, power crackling around him in bursts of lightning. He had been walking around town, doing chores, and even eating in his Super Saiyan 3 form beginning to be as comfortable as if it was his natural form.

Chi-Chi scowled at him. "GOKU! It's not polite to eat as a super saiyan! I may tolerate it in our house, but I will NOT have you embarrassing us in public!"

Goku froze at the intensity of his wife's demand. He was the undisputed most powerful fighter in this universe (even Vegeta had long ago grudgingly admitted being outclassed, for now), but he had no defense against Chi-Chi. Obediently, he relaxed his power level until his hair returned to its natural length and color and the aura of power faded. He took a look at all his friends sitting at the table and smiled his goofy grin. He picked up a fork and…

The table of food disappeared.

In fact, the entire restaurant disappeared, along with all his friends. Goku felt a moment of disorientation, a feeling similar to when he used Instant Transmission but multiplied thousands of times over. Then suddenly he was back in a solid world. But the table and all the food was still gone, as were all of his friends.

Instead, he was standing in a finely appointed office room. Suddenly, sitting at a large ornate, oak desk across from where Goku was standing was a bald man with piercing green eyes. There were several antiques on the man's desk, as well as numerous documents in neat stacks and piles. None of that really mattered to the hero at that moment, though.

"Welcome to my Earth, Goku," the man began. "First of all, I want you to know that I am a friend. I know you must be—"

"Hey! Where's my dinner!" Goku demanded.

"Your… dinner?" Lex Luthor echoed back questioningly. Then he looked at the powerful being he had summoned kill Superman and noticed the fork in his hand. "Oh, I see. Very sorry about that. But let me explain…"

Goku was a bit curious about where he was, but at that particular moment he was incredibly hungry. "Look, do you have any food to eat? I'm starving!"

Lex Luthor was a little nonplussed. This was the warrior who had taken down Superman? Brought to another place against his will and all he could think about was eating? The multi-billionaire had considered dozens of scenarios and thought of what he would say to convince his potential agent to do his bidding and end Superman, but this was nothing like what he had expected. After a moment's thought, Lex decided on a course of action.

"Of course. Especially after coming all the way from another universe. I'll see to it that you get plenty to eat." Lex pushed a button opening a door and summoning a servant, then showed Goku to an elevator that would take them down several floors to arrive at the restaurant in the building.

Lex was in for a shock. Nobody on Earth had ever seen a saiyan eat.

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><p>.<p>

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><p>Superman effortlessly smashed through the walls of the bank vault, prepared to stop another robbery. He was immediately assaulted by several metal robots with long, massive arms. They were strong. Their hands could drill through steel plates. They could smash cars flat with a single blow. They could hurt a ten ton boulder the length of a football field.<p>

But they were no challenge for the Man of Steel. Superman's muscles bulged beneath his blue suit, but he was not exerting much effort at all. If he overdid it, a piece of a robot (or maybe the entire robot) might smash through a wall and some unlucky person might be standing right there and die. Fortunately for him, and unfortunately for whoever was behind this crime, Kal-El had no compunction about destroying machines. Were these living beings, he would have to have been even more careful, even more restrained. As it was, he destroyed them all in under three seconds.

Superman X-rayed the robotic menaces, narrowing his vision to a near microscopic level looking for information he could send back to Batman or the Martian Manhunter back at JLA headquarters for analysis. Usually, Superman was not called on to handle threats as small as this. There were other members of the Justice League of America who were more than capable of handling a low level threat like this—in fact pretty much any of them could take down robotic thieves—but these crimes were taking place right in his neighborhood. Several businesses had been unexpectedly robbed, and this bank was the next on the list.

The Man of Steel's super hearing picked up a voice speaking softly just on the other side of the bank vault. He concentrated to hear what was being said. "There, just beyond that door is the alien threat. Now, I know I can count on you…"

Superman recognized the voice. How could he not? Lex Luthor had been his nemesis and a constant threat to him for almost as long as he had been a hero. It could not be a coincidence that he was here at the same time. Something was about to happen, and he was pretty sure he would not like it.

The door opened and a man stepped through with a fierce expression on his face. He had thick, black hair that rose up in odd spikes and he was dressed in an orange martial arts _gi_ with a dark blue belt and boots. It was Goku.

"Superman?" the saiyan asked, the fierce expression quickly leaving his face.

"Goku! What are you doing here?"

"Well, somehow I was summoned here from my world to get rid of some terrible alien menace that is threatening this Earth." Goku looked at the broken robots on the ground. "I guess that's them, huh? Seems you've already taken care of the problem."

Lex Luthor glared at Goku. "No, those aren't the alien threat! He is!" He said pointing to Superman. This guy was supposed to have defeated Superman in another universe! They were supposed to be enemies! "Those robots are guarding the bank vault and this villain is clearly here to rob my bank!"

"Your bank? Then these robots…" Superman began, starting to see how Luthor had manipulated him. The Kryptonian suspected he would soon be told that the robot thieves had only targeted LexCorp holdings. It was a setup from the beginning.

"You must stop him, Goku!" Lex demanded, "like you did on your world."

"Actually, Superman and I never met on my world. It was on nearby planet. Well, relatively nearby. And Superman wasn't a threat to that world, or Earth." Goku turned his attention back to Lex Luthor, the saiyan's expression stern. "I get the feeling you are trying to trick me."

"No, Goku, you have to trust me. This alien only pretends to be a hero." There was true anger in Luthor's words. "The only way for this planet to truly be safe is for the alien threat to be ended."

"Oh, I wouldn't hold him being an alien against him. I'm an alien, too," Goku said with a grin. "But you know, there's an easy way for me to know who's telling the truth here."

"How?"

"I can read your mind," Goku said simply.

Lex wanted to protest. He wanted to stop the orange-clad being from getting into his head. But it happened too fast. One instant Goku was standing between him and Superman, several feet away, the next the saiyan was standing behind him, the hero's hand on his head. The mind reading was over in a second.

Goku released the Earth villain and gave him a disdainful half-frown as he walked away from him. "That was almost like reading Krillin. He was bald, too, when I first read his mind. But Krillin is a much better person than you are. You should be ashamed of yourself." Goku turned his attention to Superman. "The sad thing is, he really believes what he's saying. He can't imagine you are as good as you act. Even after you've saved his life and spared him time and time again, he still seeks to harm you. Superman, you need to leave."

"Why?" the Man of Steel began to ask.

Goku's warning came too late. Lex Luthor activated his backup plan. Several lead-lined panels in the room opened to reveal small chunks of Kryptonite hidden within. Superman dropped to the floor and began to curl up in pain in response.

"Wow, that stuff really does hurt you," Goku remarked.

Lex Luthor did not waste any time. He pulled out a handgun from his vest pocket and fired at Superman. He did not intend on giving his fallen enemy a chance to recover or be saved by anyone else this time around. Unfortunately for him, Goku had no difficulty with catching and stopping a simple bullet, even a bullet imbued with kryptonite. He was foiled by the man who was supposed to be his own agent. That was when Lex heard the echoing sound of someone chuckling. It was a laugh he had heard before, the laughter of Neron. Hearing that, he knew he had been fooled by the devil he had made a deal with. The one he had brought to Earth to kill Superman would never do that.

It took Goku no effort at all to speed around the bank vault collecting the pieces of Kryptonite. With all the kryptonite collected together on the other side of the vault, Superman was able to get to his feet and retreat further away. Goku examined the rocks curiously.

"Thanks, Goku. If you don't mind, could you get rid of that?"

"Sure, no problem."

Goku focused his _qi_ energy on the kryptonite in his hands. The green rock began to glow more intensely. Superman went back down to his knees behind the saiyan with an audible groan. The saiyan focused more of power upon the rock and the kryptonite began to vibrate. The alien rock began to shift colors, from green to a deep blue, then gradually to a shade of orange followed by red. Then, for just an instant, the kryptonite in Goku's hands turned solid black before exploding into dust.

Superman felt immediately relieved as the radiation from the kryptonite vanished. He got back to his feet, feeling a little woozy from the brief but intense exposure to the dangerous compound. Whatever the saiyan had done to destroy it, his energy had interacted with the substance in an unpredictable way. There was no telling what the effects might be.

"Goku, are you alright?" the Man of Steel asked his friend.

"Goku?" the saiyan replied. The spikey-headed alien from another universe turned to regard Superman with eyes that had turned completely black. Slowly, the blackness faded away from the whites of his eyes leaving just his pupils again. "My name is Kakkarot."

The Kryptonian started to get an uneasy feeling. That feeling increased as he witnessed the saiyan's pants rip at the buttocks and a thick, brown-furred tail emerge and elongate behind Goku. A sneer played itself over the alien's lips.

"Kakkarot is my true, saiyan name. I am a true saiyan warrior," he said with a dramatic voice, as if coming to a sudden realization. "And it's about time I fulfilled my mission."

A moment later, he released a blast of energy that roared out around him in an instant flash, turning the building and the entire city block around it into a crater of rubble and dust.


	3. Chapter 3: Outside Interference

**Chapter 3: Outside Interference**

Superman detected the explosion of power a couple moments before the blast destroyed the bank. Despite still feeling the effects of the kryptonite radiation, Superman was able to speed over to Lex Luthor, carry him away from the attack, and shield him from the energy with his body. He had no idea, though, just how wide the area of effect would be. Superman hovered in the air above the edge where the crater of destruction ended, dangling Lex Luthor below him. The entire building and a whole city block had been obliterated.

How many people had died in that attack? It had to number in the thousands.

"GOKU! How could you do this? All the people!"

The saiyan laughed callously. "'Oh, all the people, oh no, oh no!'" he mocked, making his voice sound shrill in imitation of a goody-goody. Then his expression hardened. "And I told you. My name is Kakkarot. And it's my job to get _rid_ of all these useless people."

Appalled, Superman looked at his former friend with a horrified and then a determined look. "I won't let you do that, Goku. I will stop you."

"Hah. You couldn't stop me before, and then I was just trying to beat you up. Now, I plan to kill you." There was an arrogant smile on the formerly peaceful saiyan's face as he levitated up into the air above the city. "You will have no chance."

Lex Luthor looked at the destruction of the crater from where Superman had deposited him. It looked like a meteor had struck the Earth. At the edge of the blast radius some buildings were partially turned to rubble, partially left intact. So, the one he had summoned did have some power, Lex mused. The fact that the strange man from the other universe was boasting that he had defeated Superman before confirmed what Neron had said. Perhaps his plan, Lex Luthor thought, his devil's bargain, would work out after all.

Superman was feeling less optimistic about this situation by the second. The last time he had faced Goku the only reason people didn't die and the whole planet wasn't destroyed was due to his opponent's restraint and control over his powers. Against an opponent without restraint, and apparently without regard for human life, it would be up to him to minimize the damage to the populace.

Starting with the ball of energy the saiyan decided to randomly throw towards the city.

Superman flew quickly to intercept the attack before it hit a building. As soon as he touched the energy, though, the ball of power exploded and slammed him through the building. His impacting the structure did much less damage than if the yellow ball of energy had hit, but there was still a fair amount of damage and probably some casualties.

Superman got up and flew back through the building to once again face the grinning saiyan. Goku started laughing. Superman was about to try to warn the saiyan that he would hurt him to protect innocent people when the warrior started to casually toss more balls of energy around the city. The saiyan continued to laugh as he hurled the glowing balls of energy in different directions.

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><p>.<p>

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><p>Down on the streets of Metropolis, Neron stood with a frown beginning to develop on his face, observing the spectacle of Superman facing off against the saiyan from another universe. The people of the city walked past the imposing physical form of the demon, not noticing the creature. Were Neron to allow them to notice him, they would likely mistake him for a costumed super hero rather than the devil he really was. Of course, with Superman facing off against some new orange-clad threat in the sky, most pedestrians were too concerned with looking up at that to notice much else, anyway.<p>

The devil had initially found the surprising turn of events amusing. Having the righteous hero from another universe suddenly grow a monkey's tail and develop an unexpectedly violent personality was a funny turn of events. That explosion killing the 7,429 people within the range of the blast was a delightful little twist. Not that Neron cared much about people dying, but the angst that little act caused Superman, and would cause Goku as well when the effects of that odd combination of kryptonite radiation wore off, was delicious to the devil. Having a hand in that was going to be a source of pride for him.

But things were getting out of hand. This powerful being from another Earth, freshly become a sociopath, was tossing destruction about in a way that the heroes of the world, even Superman, would find difficult to stop. If things continued this way, everyone on Earth would die.

It wasn't that Neron cared if people died or not. He didn't. But, so many people were dying without first having lost their souls. So many innocents were going to go on to the next life without him having had the chance to corrupt them. No, Neron's little game to re-ensnare the soul of Lex Luthor and undermine the soul of Superman at the same time was having unwanted consequences.

The white clad devil in his green cape was just about to take off and intervene when a cloaked, shadowy figure emerged from the alleyway behind him and quickly moved to intercept him. Someone had noticed Neron, after all.

"Don't do it, devil. Do not interfere any more than you already have," a calm voice spoke from beneath a cloak.

"Ah, you. I must say, I am surprised that you are here and taking an interest in this little drama," Neron remarked. "How did you…"

"The moment you brought that being here from another reality, I followed you. I wanted to see what you were doing." A flash of a smile showed from beneath the shadowed hood. "And I must say, I like how things have turned out. Congratulations on a plot well-played."

"Well, thank you, but…"

"Tell me," the mysterious figure interrupted. "Is it true that the stranger can actually beat this world's 'Superman'? That he has already done it back in the universe he came from?"

Neron regarded the figure before him, trying to guess his game. "Yes," the devil finally answered truthfully. The truth often served better than a lie, or at least made your next lie more believable.

"Good," the cloaked figure responded. "Then don't interfere. Let things play out. I want to see it." Neron looked as if he were about to balk at that, but then he saw the intensity of the red glowing eyes from within the hood and paused. The cloaked man gave the devil a warning. "You don't want to make an enemy out of me. Do you, demon?"

Neron chuckled. "No, I guess I don't. Just do me a favor, though." The figure remained motionless, waiting for the request. "Don't let this world's Superman die, not by his hands," he said gesturing towards Goku. With that, Neron flickered out of existence as a gout of flame erupted from the ground.

The passersby didn't notice the flames. But they gave the hooded figure a wide berth as they walked around him.

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><p>.<p>

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><p>Superman intercepted another of the spherical energy balls. These things stung a bit, but were not really dangerous to him. But they were deadly to people of Metropolis, each having enough power to level several city blocks. The force of the explosion knocked him off his flight path, but he quickly corrected to bring him back in line with the next attack on the city. He managed to get to the next attack, but the force of the blast disoriented him for a second.<p>

Just long enough for one of the balls of energy to strike the city.

Superman cursed to himself. He hated that he wasn't fast enough or steady enough to prevent all of the attacks. That was the second one that had gotten past him. He was still feeling weaker than normal from the kryptonite exposure. Goku's method of destroying the substance had briefly intensified the dosage of radiation that struck Superman. Greatly increased it. He was feeling as if he had a much longer exposure. He felt sluggish. And Goku knew it.

"Not moving as fast as in our first fight, Krypton-man. That green rock must have done more of a number on you than I first thought." The saiyan snorted. "Hurt by a rock. Pathetic."

While the saiyan mouthed off, Superman had enough time to defend against the last of the energy spheres the saiyan had thrown. Playing a defensive game against an enemy intent on destroying the population of the Earth was a losing strategy. Time for the Man of Steel to go on the offensive.

Kal-El led with his heat vision, but the canny saiyan dodged it. But that was just a ruse to get the saiyan to commit to one side or the other. Superman accelerated towards Goku as fast as he could. Even slowed by kryptonite exposure, it was still fast enough to catch his opponent unguarded and land a blow.

But Goku had fought the Kryptonian before and was not surprised by the speed of the attack. He rolled with the force of the strike, negating most of the power of the attack, and then flew back in a loop to engage Superman in hand to hand combat right in the middle of the air. The two traded blows, for a few seconds. Goku was surprised to find a more disciplined fighting style from the Man of Steel than he was accustomed to. There were many more refined elements to his combat style this time around.

"My, my, you've done some training since the last time we fought," the saiyan complimented. "Might make this interesting for a few minutes."

"I've mastered Kryptonian martial arts, Goku. I'm better prepared for…"

Goku's fist smashed into Superman's nose, sending the Kryptonian flying backwards. "You were saying, oh Master of Kryptonian martial arts?" Goku dematerialized and rematerialized directly in front of Superman, connecting with a wicked punch to his gut that struck a vital region of his anatomy.

A normal human would have broken their hand hitting Superman there. But from the saiyan it was a debilitating attack. The blow was placed in precisely the right spot so that pain wracked the Man of Steel. The saiyan was physically much weaker than Superman, but blows augmented by _ki_ energy multiplied their power many, many times over. Worse still, the effects of the kryptonite were hindering both Superman's regenerative powers and his normal invulnerability factor.

Goku smashed Superman down to the planet with an overhead strike between Kal-El's shoulder blades. The Man of Steel crashed through the street, breaking the pavement apart, to fall down into a Metropolis subway tunnel. Goku waited for the Kryptonian to crawl back out of the hole he had knocked Superman through before his next attack.

The saiyan cupped one of his hands and held it over his head. A ball of intense green energy formed there, the power of the energy orb was packed densely. It was an attack meant to overcome resistance rather than to cause widespread destruction. "Here's a little something I learned from Brolly. Enjoy!" He yelled out that last word as he hurled the ball of energy towards the Man of Steel.

Superman could not dodge the attack. He had no way of knowing how much damage it could do to the city. Knowing his opponent, it might even have been powerful enough to blow the entire planet to bits. Unfortunately, Superman knew he was weakening rather than recovering. His healing powers were not functioning. He braced himself for what he expected to be a very painful explosion.

The pain never came. The ball of energy struck a dome of green power. The massive shield shook with the power of the attack, but it held. Kal-El looked up to see a very welcome sight.

Green Lantern John Stewart was descending through the air, his power ring held aloft. He was accompanied by another hero and member of the Justice League: The Martian Manhunter. A reddish, orange blur appeared moments later, and a tall orange-costumed figure appeared in front of Superman as well. The Flash, Wally West, had joined them as well. Superman felt himself sigh with relief. Three more powerful members of the Justice League would surely be able to handle this situation while he recovered.

"Thought you might need some help, Superman," Stewart remarked as he landed. A couple more blasts rocked his shield, doubling in strength each time. The Green Lantern looked up with annoyance. "Definitely a powerful threat. But we'll handle him. What does he want?"

The Green Lantern focused his will and created a copy of himself, though completely made out of green willpower energy. He sent the copy up to keep the attacker busy.

Superman grimaced. "Careful guys. He's incredibly powerful. But he's not in his right mind. We were both exposed to kryptonite and something happened to his mind. It's somehow twisted."

"Kryptonite? He's a Kryptonian?" The Flash asked with obvious concern.

"No, but not human either. He's very fast, especially over short distances, but over long distances he is at a disadvantage. However, his teleportation ability negates that weakness. And he's an incredible fighter, the best I've ever seen. He might not have my strength, but he sure hits like it. You don't want to get into a physical confrontation with him, and you do not want to underestimate him."

"You seem to know a lot about him, Kal-El," the Martian Manhunter remarked.

"Yeah, this is the second time we've fought. He's from another universe completely separate from our own. There, he's the Earth's greatest hero. So, we don't want to kill him. He is just temporarily insane. But he has to be stopped. He has the power to destroy this whole world, and in his current state that's exactly what he is planning."

John Stewart felt his energy construct get smashed to pieces. Their chatting time was coming to an end. "Well, time to get to work."

"We need to get you into sunlight, Kal-El," the Martian offered. "That should help you recover your strength more quickly."

"You're right, J'onn, but I need you to try and reason with Goku. Green Lantern, if you could use your ring to get me above this cloud cover without attracting Goku's attention, that should be great."

"And me?" Wally West asked of the Man of Steel.

"I don't want you anywhere near the battle. But you can evacuate as many people as possible from out of the way of his attacks. Minimize the loss of life."

There was a sudden explosion above them and John Stewart felt his shield of willpower crumble under the weight of the attack. He grabbed Superman and rendered them both invisible as they sped up into the sky. Flash and the Martian Manhunter were left to look up at the orange clad menace above them. J'onn J'onzz didn't hesitate, he flew straight towards the enemy who was destroying his adopted world.


	4. Chapter 4: Twisted Minds

**Chapter 4: Twisted Minds**

"Well, well, well. If it isn't this world's Piccolo. Let me guess, Namekian?"

Kakkarot measured the green-skinned alien who had flown up to engage him. This new opponent was tall and long-limbed like his long time friend and former nemesis back on his own planet. Much like a Namekian, this alien's skin was smooth and even-toned. The thickly muscled Martian wore a long flowing cape of deep blue over his shoulders, with simple red bands stretched over his otherwise bare chest.

"Martian, actually," the veteran Justice League member replied. "But presently, I hail from Earth. And I will not allow you to continue to destroy my home."

"Let's see if you can back up your words, Martian," the Goku sneered and threw a punch towards the green alien's face.

J'onn J'onzz had no intention of ignoring Superman's warning not to engage this foe in combat. He trusted his friend's judgment when it came to danger. But he would not give this powerful enemy a chance to attack the city, either.

Goku's punch went right through the Martian, almost as if he weren't there. Surprised, the saiyan attacked again, faster, only to have his attacks pass right through the green-skinned hero without striking anything. Kakkarot began to wonder if this alien were not somehow so much faster than him that the Martian could dodge his attack and move back in place so quickly that even Goku could not perceive the motion, something he had done to several opponents who had thought themselves fast. It would have been incredible, for even in his base form he could perceive motion faster than light.

Only when Goku's entire leg passed through his opponent and then the Martian floated _through_ him did the saiyan realize that his opponent had not been moving at all, simply turning his body intangible. But it was already too late. By striking through the Martian Manhunter, Kakarrot had given him the opportunity to pass through him and position himself from behind. The powerful alien from Mars turned his body back to a physical state and grabbed the powerful alien from the planet Vegeta, wrapping his arms and legs around the temporarily psychotic hero to restrain him.

J'onn knew he was not Superman's equal in strength or speed. He was close, though. Close enough that even being half or a quarter of the Kryptonian's strength, he was still physically far stronger than Goku. If he could hold him in place, the saiyan wouldn't be able to cause any more damage while the rest of the League figured a way to stop him more permanently, or even until the effects of the kryptonite wore off if need be.

Furious, Kakkarot tried to break free of the hold the Martian had him in. He couldn't even budge the green powerhouse's grip in the least.

"I know you are not in your right mind. Superman explained it to me. So you need not fear I will hurt you. I only want to keep you from hurting the people of this planet."

"Oh? And what if I want to hurt YOU?"

"You'll have to get free, first. And I don't believe you can, not after I have already grabbed a hold of you like this."

Goku struggled for a few seconds without effect, but as he did so a cocky smile found its way onto his face.

* * *

><p>.<p>

* * *

><p>Down on the ground, a bald headed human looked up at the spectacle of the Justice League member holding onto the saiyan in mid-air. Lex Luthor cursed his luck. Superman had been hurt, the kryptonite had weakened him to the point where every hit that his unwitting agent from another universe struck hurt the Man of Steel more. It would only have been a matter of time before his champion was the winner and the hated Kryptonian was dead, until those other Justice League members had shown up to spoil his plan.<p>

Lex had timed his robot attacks to coincide with a crisis that had called away several Justice League members, but had left Superman and a few other heroes in reserve. His plan fell apart when he discovered the powerful being Neron had summoned had been friends with Superman rather than enemies, but then the accident with the kryptonite had set things back on course for him. That was, until Green Lantern and Martian Manhunter interfered.

Luthor hoped his pawn would manage to defeat his green skinned opponent and go after Superman again. Sure, there was already quite a bit of damage to the city. But that was what life and property insurance was for.

Lex looked up to see a flash of light, and then the Martian Manhunter was thrown flying across the city. Lex Luthor smiled. Things were looking up.

* * *

><p>.<p>

* * *

><p>"KAIOKEN!" Kakkarot shouted the name of King Kai's secret technique to increased power. "Times TWENTY!" his voice rang out with a powerful echo.<p>

The kaioken technique was dangerous. It had the effect of instantly increasing the user's power, multiplying it several times over. Unlike his typical means of increasing power, it also amplified a person's physical characteristics by the same amount. Taken too far, the strain could overwhelm him, killing him. But Goku had long ago pushed the technique to new heights, beyond what its original creator had envisioned. As soon as the saiyan uttered the words as he activated the technique, his muscles bulged outward and his entire aura turned a fierce red.

Multiplying his base form strength more than twenty times over did not put him on par with the Martian Manhunter. He was still physically far weaker. But it was the mass increase that Goku was taking advantage of. It was impossible for J'onn to maintain his hold properly with the increased mass in the not-increased space. The position shifted, and that was all Goku needed. He expertly maneuvered his body to escape the hold, then twisted the Martian around using his own strength against him, and threw the green-skinned Martian away from him, across the city.

Once free, Kakkarot did not hesitate. He popped across the city ahead of the Martian Manhunter and delivered several powerful blows, before his opponent had time to right his own course or set a defense. The green-skinned hero felt the strikes hitting him at critical points, the hyper-fast punches and kicks doing serious damage. J'onn had a strong level of invulnerability to physical attacks, but like most of his powers, it was less than Superman's. Each strike hurt him a lot.

J'onn turned intangible once more. No wonder Superman had warned him not to fight the saiyan directly. He wasn't being punched by just some generic super-strong fighter. There was an energy behind it that was unlike anything he had ever felt before. It wasn't as hard as a Kryptonian's punch, but it was very, very effective.

The Martian remained in his intangible state while his opponent threw punches and kicks towards him. This time the saiyan stayed just in front of his opponent, not letting him slip behind or through his body. Forcing the Martian to stay intangible, but not letting him grab a hold of him again, Kakkarot was able to keep his opponent on the defensive.

"Interesting trick, Martian. But let's see just what the limits of this technique you are using are."

Goku fired a burst of ki energy with his finger. The energy ray passed directly through the green hero and struck a building behind him on the ground. The building exploded outward at the point where the blast hit and collapsed on itself. Goku grinned.

"So, I can't hurt you when you are like that, but you can't stop me from blowing this city into a bunch of smoke, either."

Which was true, the Justice League hero couldn't stop the saiyan from attacking the city while intangible. Not physically. Without any further hesitation, the Martian Manhunter entered Goku's consciousness.

What he found shocked him.

Goku's mind was split in two. One consciousness was in a state of paralysis. Sifting through its memories J'onn could see a positive and happy personality. It cared for several people, especially two children, a wife, and several close friends. Even the lives of enemies were valued by this currently psychotic hero. The dormant personality was fiercely loyal and J'onn could sense within it a willpower that was indomitable. Unfortunately, it was shut off from the rest of the mind by an invisible barrier of exotic mental energy.

The other part of the mind was completely different. From what the Martian could tell, it wasn't a completely formed personality, just a fraction of an ego that was in control while the remainder of the self and the being's id were inaccessible. But there was something else there driving it… a programming from an artificial source. It was this directive that, without any other will to override it, determined the actions of the saiyan.

* * *

><p>.<p>

* * *

><p>Superman felt the rays of the Earth's sun wash over him like a cleansing bath. The warmth of the star poured into his body and he could literally feel the sickness that had entered him from the kryptonite washing off of him. Beside him, Green Lantern John Stewart hovered in the darkness of space, watching him with a worried yet hopeful expression.<p>

"Is it working, Superman? Or do you need me to bring you closer?"

"No, John, this will do. Thanks. I don't think I could have gotten out here without J'onn distracting Goku or you making sure he didn't see us. In just a few seconds we can head back and help deal with this."

"I hope everything is going well down there. If anyone can deal with this, it's J'onn, but anyone who can hurt you is someone seriously dangerous," the Green Lantern said with a shake of his head.

'_Kal-El_,' Superman heard in his thoughts.

'_J'onn_'?

'_Yes. I have engaged the mind of our opponent, and it is as you feared. He is not at all in his right mind. I can sense the effect of the kryptonite, but there's also something else. A sort of program._'

'_Did Luthor do this to him?_'

'_No, I don't think so. It seems like an artifact from some sort of childhood programming, like a brainwashing during infancy. But, his mind is incredibly strong for someone who has had such trauma. He shows signs of very advanced mental training._'

'_Can you shut the programming down?_'

'_I will try, but__—_'

'_But? J'onn? J'onn?_'

Superman got no response from his friend. The connection to the Martian Manhunter's mind had been disconnected very suddenly.

"We'd better get back down there. Now," he said to the Green Lantern Corps member.

* * *

><p>.<p>

* * *

><p>Martian Manhunter was looking into the very intense eyes of the saiyan before him. The moment he had tried to affect anything within the other's mind, rather than just observe, a powerful mental barrier went up and his communication with his teammates was cut off. However ill-formed the personality he was dealing with was, it had full access to the whole mental training Goku had gone through.<p>

"Yes, I have mental powers, too. A bit of telekinesis. Telepathy strong enough to speak with minds from across a galaxy. And enough training to push someone intruding out of my mind forcibly," Kakkarot stated matter-a-factly.

"Indeed. Very formidable."

"Hmph. Don't patronize me. I can tell your abilities with the mind outstrip me by far. But I'm strong enough to keep you from messing with my head."

"Goku, I'm not trying to mess with your mind. I'm trying to heal the damage that was done. The real you is—"

The saiyan smirked. "I know all about the 'real' me. It wants to stop me from fulfilling my mission." The smile vanished. "But I won't let it stop me. Or you."

Kakkarot punched straight through the Martian's chest. As before, the blow hit nothing at all. But this attack was a set up. It was intended to ensure that the opponent was located at a certain point in-between states.

Goku dematerialized. In the split instant between his dematerialization and reintegration back in another place, he struck the Martian Manhunter with a vicious kick.

The Martian was completely surprised by the attack. He had been forced back into tangibility by beings with control of their atomic structure, such as being vibrated back into the physical realm by the Flash, but never before had he been physically hit while still immaterial. The blow of an immaterial ki aligned perfectly with his immaterial form was something completely new. And devastating.

J'onn crashed through three buildings and an oil tanker on his way down to hit the city streets below. Cars were sent flying into the sidewalks, fire hydrants burst open on corners, and chunks of rock became deadly missiles that killed anyone unlucky enough to be hit by the debris. And that was when the oil tanker caught fire and exploded, raining petroleum based flames on everyone around them.

It was a few seconds before J'onn J'onzz was able to pull himself off the smashed up ground. As soon as he looked around, he wished that he had not. The horror of the flames burning all around him was a massive shock to his system. He shrank back from the flames with a frightened look on his face.

Far above street level, Kakkarot laughed maniacally.

"Oh this is just too sweet! You, afraid of fire? Ha ha ha ha!" Then he turned a baleful eye and cruel sneer down on the Martian Manhunter. "You think that's scary? Well, what do you think of this?"

Goku extended his hand above his head. Reaching back to his memories, he found a particular moment on the surface of planet Namek: facing off against Jeice and Berta of the Ginyu Force. Jeice had formed his patented 'fire crusher ball', an attack that was laughably underpowered against him at the time. Still, the memory was there, and a great towering ball of flaming destruction slowly formed in his hand.

J'onn J'onzz looked up into the sky to see a ball of flame that looked like a miniature version of a red sun. His eyes went wide and all control over his powers slipped away from him. "Please…. no…" he whimpered as the paralyzing fear took hold of him.

"Time to watch this city burn!" Kakkarot screamed and hurled the giant ball of flame down to the city. He watched below as the explosion of fire covered everything within his sight.

* * *

><p>.<p>

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note<strong> (includes some DBZ spoilers): Goku's mental powers are underexplored in the series. However, he did demonstrate telekinesis and telepathy. You can see the telekinesis when he digs a grave for Vegeta with his mind. You first see him use telepathy when he read Krillin's mind, and later he is shown initiating telepathic contact even between the realms of the living and dead. The mental intrusion repelling is only shown once that I can recall, when Krillin and Gohan were training together while on the way to Namek. Goku never displays this ability in the show, but it can be inferred from that scene that Goku does have this power.

As for Goku's taking Jeice's fire crusher ball, that is not from anything in canon at all. However, I don't think it is much of a stretch since heat energy is the least organized of the energy types (see your local physical science textbook if you want a source for that). If Goku can make more refined energy types, I think he can do less refined ones from techniques he has witnessed.


	5. Chapter 5: It's Worse

**Chapter 5: "It's Worse"**

Goku looked down at the explosive effects of the massive fireball he had created with a slight frown on his face. The fire had spread much, much too far and thinned out. This was supposed to be a concentrated attack. When the fire cleared up, he could see the reason why it had spread so thin.

The fire had impacted and spread out over a large green field of force that had formed horizontally to cover the entire city. The funny looking guy wearing green had reappeared, holding his ring up in the air. Down on the surface, the Martian was still alive.

Not that Goku was surprised. He had felt a sudden dip in power from the Martian Manhunter but it hadn't completely extinguished. In fact, the power dip had occurred even before the fireball had struck. Fear had robbed his opponent of his power. Kakkarot also felt another familiar power return. And now it was stronger than earlier—much stronger.

The Man of Steel appeared directly in front of his face with a very displeased look and his arms crossed in front of his chest, floating in the air. "I'm warning you, Goku. Do not continue attacking this city. Or my friends. There will be consequences."

The saiyan laughed at him. "Consequences? Yeah, there will be. This city will be burnt to a crisp and your friends will die. But I can live with those consequences." Then it was Goku's turn to give his own warning. "You should tell your friends to stay out of our fight if you don't want them to get hurt."

"This isn't a duel, Goku. They're here to protect the Earth just like I am." Superman uncrossed his arms. "Look, we can still stop this. Look inside yourself, Goku. You know you don't want to hurt anyone else. You're carrying out a program that doesn't even make sense anymore."

"Finished begging?"

Superman clenched his fists for a second, then relaxed them. He knew the longer he dragged this out, the more time the effects of the kryptonite had to wear off. He would not be goaded into a fight.

"Call my offer what you want. I will fight you if I have to, but I know you are not yourself. Why don't you just come with me and…"

The saiyan smashed Superman in the face.

Instead of responding, Superman stood there impassively. Sure, the hit stung a bit, but it didn't really have the power behind it to do any real damage. Superman resolved to maintain his position and allow his opponent to hit him as much as he wanted, no matter how much it might hurt.

Seeing the Kryptonian's unresponsiveness, Kakkarot unleashed a torrent of attacks aimed at critical points on the alien's anatomy. He could see flashes of pain in his opponent's eyes. But the Man of Steel would not bend or break.

Down on the surface, Wally West and John Stewart stood beside a recovering Martian Manhunter. The Flash was glad Superman was keeping the dangerous visitor busy. He had had his hands full rescuing thousands of people whenever an attack slipped through to hit the planet. He was having to push himself to keep ahead of the blasts.

"Looks like Superman has this covered now that he's not suffering any more from kryptonite poisoning," he remarked to Green Lantern and Martian Manhunter.

J'onn nodded. "Yes, Goku is a dangerous opponent that hits hard. But not hard enough to really hurt Kal-El. But, Superman was right about his short-range quickness and fighting skill, though. If you aren't on your toes you will pay the price, like I almost did. Thank you for saving me."

Green Lantern acknowledged his friend's gratitude and continued to watch the encounter. "I wonder what Superman is waiting for. He should knock this clown out so no more lives get lost."

High above them, Superman heard their comments. In truth, if he could be sure of a sure knockout, he would be tempted to try it. But he knew from experience that the saiyan was very quick and could increase his power almost instantly. It would be better if…

Goku stopped his attack. "Impressive, Kal-El. You have gotten much stronger since we last fought. Back on New Namek those same blows were knocking you around and causing a lot more pain than you're feeling now. It seems the more I hit you now, the more accustomed you are getting to that feeling."

For just a moment, Superman thought this might be the end of the fight. But moments later, he knew he should have known better. That was just the calm before the storm.

In an instant, Superman felt an awesome power explode outward. It was a power he had only felt once before. The power of the transformation knocked him backwards.

Goku had developed his base form into a fit, lean, yet still powerfully built physique. The instant of his transformation, however, his musculature nearly doubled. Where his iris had been solid black, now they turned into a fierce green. The hair on his head became a gleaming golden hue and Goku was surrounded by an intense aura of glowing yellow power.

Down on the surface, Green Lantern, Martian Manhunter, and the Flash looked up in wonder. They could feel the increase in power from there. John Stewart heard an urgent communication to his mind from his power ring. _Warning: The power detected in the being above us exceeds Green Lantern Corp sector safety limits. This warning is automatically being transmitted to the Guardians on Oa. Use extreme caution._

"This can't be good," the Green Lantern muttered.

Superman found himself agreeing with the sentiment after he was knocked down to the streets by Goku's next attack. He was barely able to stop his descent, his feet touching the street as he kicked off to rocket back up to attack back. Standing (or floating) there and just taking it was no longer an option.

Kal-El flew up towards his opponent, accelerating to near light speeds. His punch was partially blocked and partially rolled away from, but it struck with enough force that Goku was unable to immediately counter-attack. Superman found himself momentarily on the offensive. He attacked rapid fire, his fists flying as fast as he could make them go.

Or, as fast as he thought he could make them go. Having fought Goku before and seen him go toe to toe with an even more powerful Superman from another universe, The Man of Steel knew he would have to give it his all, holding nothing back if he wanted to have any chance at all in this battle. But knowing in his head and knowing in his heart were two different things. Kal-El could not bring himself to risk the sort of damage that fully unleashing his powers was bound to cause.

Goku evaded and rolled away from his opponent's strikes. Superman had truly improved his fighting style, not attempting to use brawler moves against a martial artist of Goku's caliber. But he was far from being on the same level as the saiyan in terms of fighting technique. Nor had he ever encountered another tactical genius of this level.

In moments, Goku had turned Superman's attacks back on him, turning Superman's motion into openings through which to strike back with punches and kicks. This time when Goku's stiffened fingers jabbed up through the gaps in his rib-bones, Superman felt it hurt with a searing pain. When Goku dodged a right cross, flipped over and snap-kicked with this heel onto the back of Kal-El's neck, Superman felt the crack of his bones weakening.

Each burst of pain created another opening for his opponent to attack. He remembered feeling pain like this, now. He had felt it before, though a bit worse, when he had fought against Doomsday. Doomsday's blows were more forceful, more brutal, but these were also hitting hard enough to bypass his invulnerability.

Despite this, Superman found the battle somewhat heartening. The last time Goku had battered him as a super saiyan, it was _worse_ than when he had fought Doomsday. Mercifully, the saiyan had only knocked him to the planet and detonated an explosion with enough power to destroy a planet on his head, causing him to black out, instead of murdering him.

Goku smashed a kick into Superman's forehead that sent him flying down to the surface of the planet. Superman's body smashed through a dozen buildings. Wally West was there at the bottom to catch him, and the Flash was sent flying from the effort, but they both got up.

"You okay?" the speedster asked.

"I'm fine," the Man of Steel replied through bloodied lips. Superman could feel his injuries healing every second of rest he had. "I'm doing better than last time, actually. I'll manage." Then he flew back up to continue the battle before the saiyan was tempted to start throwing random destruction down on Metropolis.

Too late.

"Took you long enough, Superman. Catch this!" Kakkarot cackled. Then he fired off a barrage of explosive energy. Hundreds of yellow streaking energy attacks streaked down towards the planet like a meteor storm.

There were just too many. Even if he could take the blasts, which he wasn't sure he could, Superman knew he could never stop them all. "Kakkarot!" Superman screamed. "I thought you said you were a TRUE SAIYAN!"

The saiyan paused. Then, with expert control, he turned all the blasts of energy back up away from the planet, arcing back up to form a large energy sphere between Goku's hands before fading out of existence. Goku glared at Superman from afar, disappeared then reappeared directly in Superman's face.

"What did you say?" he asked the Kryptonian.

Relief was clear on Superman's face from that near miss, but that quickly turned to hostility. "I said, I thought you claimed you were a true saiyan."

Kakkarot's eyes were murderous. "I AM a true saiyan. Who are you to question ME about my heritage?"

"I thought saiyan warriors were honorable, unafraid of combat. They don't need unfair advantages to win a battle," Superman chided. "That's what you told me after our fight last time. Yet here you are, threatening a planet to force me to take your blasts when you know I can dodge them."

Goku snorted derisively. "Is that all? If you decide to block my blasts out of some pathetic need to save others, that's not my fault. It's your fault for being weak. A true warrior exploits his opponent's weaknesses."

Superman frowned. Then he tried a different tactic. "Maybe so, but a true warrior wants to test himself against his opponent at his best, not handicap him."

"So?"

"So, I'm not fighting you at my full strength. I can't. If I use my full power here, so close to the city, people will die, and I won't allow that." Superman saw he had gotten through to his opponent. "If you want to show me you are a true warrior, you'll fight me somewhere that I can let loose, fight you at my best."

Superman knew how to use his opponent's weaknesses against them, too. The pride of a saiyan identity was easy to recognize and exploit.

"Ok, Kal-El. We can fight somewhere with no people around. How's that? How about over an ocean."

"That's fine by me."

"Good," Goku agreed. "But once I've beaten you at your best, I'm going to destroy everyone on this planet," Goku added with a dark smile. "Just so you don't think otherwise."

Superman nodded. He didn't know how he was going to win, but he knew he had to. The Earth depended on him. "Give me a minute, Kakkarot. I'm going to tell my allies to stay out of this. But I want them to watch, and help reduce the damage from our fight. That way I can give you my all." Addressing Goku by his saiyan name had been effective in getting this concession. Superman decided not to risk what he had won by antagonizing the mentally confused super saiyan.

With his opponent's consent, Superman flew down to give instructions to his team mates. "Green Lantern, Wally, I need the two of you to follow me. He's agreed to take this battle out over the ocean so that I can fight him at full power," Superman said to his friends. "J'onn," he continued, "I want you to watch from a distance. If I fail, you're the only one who can stop him. But don't get involved unless I fall and he starts attacking the Earth. He knows your weakness now and will exploit it."

"I've called for reinforcements from the Green Lantern Corps, but it seems there's another crisis in another sector taking precedence. We're on our own for now," John Stewart related.

The Flash shrugged his shoulders. "Hmm, maniacal ex-hero about to blow up the planet. And no backup. Well, could be worse."

* * *

><p>.<p>

* * *

><p>Down on the streets of Metropolis there were few onlookers remaining. Some had been evacuated by the Flash while many more had decided to get out of the city until this threat was resolved. But among those that remained, one pair of eyes in particular watched the group fly off without fear and with great interest.<p>

So, this was the power that had stopped Superman before. It truly was a powerful threat. Not even the world's greatest hero could stop all the destruction that force from another universe rained down on the city. The cloaked figure looked down at his hands, both of which were singed and smoking. Powerful, indeed.

When the group was far enough away that they would not notice, the observer rose up into the air and flew off after them. His time had almost come. But he would wait until just the right moment.

* * *

><p>.<p>

* * *

><p>Superman considered flying much faster than he currently was. He knew that when Goku fought, he used his top speed in short bursts, or relied on dematerializing to move at near-luminal or superluminal velocities. Over longer distances, the saiyan expended far more energy. Forcing him to keep up might make him burn up more of his power and give him an edge in their coming battle.<p>

On the other hand, if Goku were left behind in his current psychotic state, he might just decide to blast something to bits as he passed over it. Then there was the hope that the effect from the kryptonite might wear off, and even the three minutes longer it would take travelling only around twenty times the speed of sound rather than a hundred times mach speed might make a difference. Better to keep to Goku's slower long distance flight speed.

They flew beneath the thick clouds that covered the United State's eastern seaboard on out towards the Atlantic. The further east they travelled the darker the sky got, and the water below them mirrored the sky in its growing darkness. They flew through rain, Green Lantern transporting the Flash to prevent him from needing to run on top of the water. Finally, they came to where they would battle.

Eight hundred and thirty four miles east-southeast of Bermuda was a barren stretch of rock four miles wide and three miles long. It was an artificial island, created by LexCorp for weapons testing far from the eyes of the international community. Fortunately for the world, Luthor's attempt to disguise this weapons program had been detected. Not by Superman, but by the watchful eye of the Dark Knight of Gotham. Batman had shared this information with the Justice League and Luthor's operation was shut down. The island, however, remained.

Superman set down on the island, followed by Green Lantern John Stewart with the Flash, and then Goku. Martian Manhunter remained aloft. Once the fighting began, he would move further away from the conflict to maintain watch from a distance and keeping in contact with JLA headquarters.

"One second, Kakkarot, if you don't mind," Superman requested of the saiyan before turning his attention to his team. "Wally, you're on anti-tsunami duty. Use your speed to counter any vibrations in the water. John, I'm counting on you to cushion the blows to the Earth. Between you and the ocean there shouldn't be too much damage."

With their roles assigned, Superman mentally prepared himself for the coming battle. He knew he couldn't afford to think of Goku as the fun-loving and friendly guy he had met when he had been taken to the planet Namek. Even if he were in his right mind, and this was just a fight for fun, Kal-El knew he would have to fight as if his life depended on it, as if he really wanted to hurt his opponent, in order to win.

"Are you ready, Kal-El?" the cocky saiyan asked?

"I'm ready," came Superman's ready answer.

Then he fired his heat vision at his opponent. The twin beams of red passed through where the super saiyan had been, flying off into the air above the empty ocean. Goku was already approaching, his punch about to strike the Man of Steel's face, but Superman dodged out of the way and countered with a straightforward chop.

Free to unleash the full powers of his heritage without fear of some innocent bystander being hit by a chunk of debris and dying or a building being wrecked by a hurricane force generated by a swing of his fist, Superman was more than able to keep up with his opponent. The years of exposure to the yellow sun and his increased confidence in his powers from his immense experience had made him even stronger and faster than he was the last time they had met. He was ready.

Kakkarot was pleasantly surprised by how this fight was turning out. The thrill of battle washed over him. It was one thing to spar against other saiyans whose skills and moves you knew. It was another to fight against a powerful and competent enemy. And one whose physical strength was a thousand times your own, one who could withstand all but the hardest of blows without even needing to set a block? This was a thrill. And it had nothing to do with kryptonite. Even that side of Goku that was locked away by the effect of the strange radiation would have enjoyed the sheer sport of this battle.

Superman chopped across Goku's body diagonally and upwards with his right hand, his left pushing upwards on the saiyan's defensive block. Kakkarot responded by falling backwards under the strike and countering with a spinning foot sweep. The Man of Steel easily jumped over it, partly taking to the air as he somersaulted and smashed down with his left fist where the saiyan was. The blow cracked the island in half, just missing Goku.

Superman had overextended himself with that attack, and the saiyan martial arts master took advantage of the overeager attack. He smashed a palm striking technique into Superman's side, rotated around to land a blow to the Man of Steel's lower back, and sent a quick kick to connect with his face when Superman tried to turn back around. Pain flooded through Superman's body, each of those strikes perfectly aimed and perfectly executed with the addition of _ki_ energy multiplying their effects geometrically.

Kal-El fought through the pain, ignoring it as he had been trained. Learning to do so had been a difficult lesson for him. Most of his life was completely and utterly pain free. Even when attacked by enemies, thrown through walls, blasted by energy or electricity, he did feel the force of the blow as a shock to his system, but it didn't really hurt. His first lessons in pain had come when he had been made mortal. Experiencing pain and discomfort became as common a thing to him as it was to anyone without powers, and eventually he adapted. But still, when he regained his abilities he would go for months or years again without feeling even the slightest twinge of hurting. Only in rare cases, such as his battle with the monstrous Doomsday, could ever feel pain while he still held his powers.

Which was why it was remarkable that the Man of Steel was able to ignore what he was feeling when Goku hit him with powerful strikes beyond what his Kryptonian invulnerability protected him from. Kal-El set blocks and sent punches towards the saiyan in response, who nimbly dodged around them or turned them aside. Despite his improved speed and training, Superman still had great difficulty finding a proper angle to attack from.

At the speed they were fighting, John Stewart had no way of seeing what was happening with his natural eyes. From time to time the two would appear standing at one place on the island or in the air, one of them pushing or holding the other; then they would blur and vanish. Through his ring, which was connected with the physical reality of the world, Green Lantern could make out what was happening as if time slowed down for him. In a sense, it did, his thoughts made able to keep up with the activity.

He had never seen a fight like this. He was used to seeing Superman punch someone or something and whatever it was would either be defeated, or get up and rush back and knock Superman the opposite direction, almost like taking turns. He had seen the Flash fight at super speeds, pummeling opponents with a barrage of constant strikes. But this was something different. It was a ballet of motion, one fighter striking the other and continuing to the next attack fluidly, but with the other reacting to block, turn or dodge and countering in a dance of what looked like coordinated motion. It was a deadly dance of strikes that would destroy buildings or even mountains in one blow.

From time to time one or the other would land a blow that would launch the other into the air, crashing backwards into the ground, or splashing into the ocean. Usually it was Goku hitting Superman, who would fly back a few seconds later to keep the fight going. But then there were times that the saiyan didn't dodge fast enough, or Superman struck through a block that was not established soon enough and it was the orange clad fighter who would go flying away, only to come back even more determined and aggressive than before.

The two smashed together again after another such instance, Goku landing a kick that lacked the force to do any damage to the Kryptonian and they were locked together in that position for just a split-second before Goku did a back flip to get out of the awkward position his failed attack had put him in. Neither of the two were breathing hard, but Goku looked as if he had taken the worst of the battle, having a couple scrapes visible on his face. Superman had taken a number of cuts as well, but the minor scrapes healed even as the onlookers watched.

Things were looking up, Green Lantern John Stewart was thinking at that moment. Even Goku was looking up. Up in the sky, the rain clouds had parted. The soft beams of the full, round moon fell down upon the island.

Kakkarot began laughing.

Hearing the maniacal laughter, Wall West remarked, "I think he's gone looney! Literally!" as he came to stand beside his team mate from the Green Lantern Corps.

Then Goku's eyes suddenly enlarged. The entire eye sockets increased in size, and the green of Goku's pupils became a fierce glowing red. Goku's laugh became a guttural growl.

John Stewart was completely surprised. "What the…"

Then Goku began to grow fangs. His cocky expression turned into one of bestial rage. Then fur began to emerge from every point on his body, and his nose elongated into a snout.

"Holy mother of Big Foot! He's a werewolf!" the Flash exclaimed in shock.

And that was when Goku started to grow. His body began to expand in all dimensions, bulking up and beginning to tower into the sky. His massive form began to take on a brutish, ape-like form. The great beast opened his mouth and roared as he continued to grow, until he was the size a moderate sized office building.

"That's no wolf," John Stewart remarked to his friend. "Looks like a were-gorilla."

Wally nodded. "A mega-were-gorilla."

"Wally, remember back in Metropolis when you said things could be worse?"

"Yeah?"

Green Lantern pointed to the monstrous golden oozaru.


	6. Chapter 6: Identities and Power

**Chapter 6: Identities and Power**

Superman stared at the spectacle of the towering Golden Great Ape. The titanic oozaru roared with a bestial fury, and sea around the deserted man-made island responded with explosions of water shooting upwards into the air. For a moment, the gargantuan beast had no target for its rage, stomping on the ground in its aimless fury. That single stomp sent a shockwave through the Earth and the entire globe shuddered for an instant.

That stomp could have had even greater consequences if not for the quick thinking and even quicker actions of the Flash. Wally West felt the shockwave pass him by, stumbling for a moment. But he knew what a force like that in the middle of the ocean would do. In an instant, he blurred away from the battleground and straight into the ocean. The water folded around the Speedforce generated field that surrounded him as he out ran the shockwave, and then turned in a circle around it, creating a vibration pattern in the water directly opposite to the approaching wave. The two disturbances in the water would cancel out, preventing a massive tsunami from forming.

While the Flash was dealing with the effects of that single stomp, Superman was sizing up the original threat. In a blur of speed, the Man of Steel sped towards the gigantic creature and landed a powerful right to its jaw. The blow only managed to turn the creature's head. The ape roared in response and turned its baleful red eyes on the tiny man who had dared to strike it.

Superman hovered in the air for an instant before the gigantic fist of the monstrosity came slamming down towards him. Superman sped away from the blow, but had to rapidly change directions as the creature's other hand came immediately swiping across from the other direction. The Man of Steel was surprised by the speed of the creature, and when the swipe clipped his legs, he was astounded by its raw strength. The blow knocked the Kryptonian out of the air, sending him crashing back to the surface of the island a quarter mile away.

The Flash blurred back onto the scene just in time to watch the giant ape send Superman to the ground. "Do something!" he called out to the Green Lantern who was just hovering there in the air.

A pair of gigantic green shackles appeared in the air above the beast and latched onto it by the shoulders. But no sooner than the constructs grabbed a hold of the ape than the beast broke free of their hold and the constructs shattered into loose energy. Sweat poured down John Stewart's face.

"Come on, John, I know you can do better than that!" Wally protested in disbelief. "You're a Lantern! That thing is just a big, oversized monkey! Your will is stronger than it is!"

"You don't understand, Wally," John Stewart replied, shaking his head. "It's a giant, oversized YELLOW monkey. Trying to stop that is thing is more difficult than trying to hold back a star from its orbit."

"Come on! The yellow impurity problem, I know. But you can overcome it!"

"Look, Wally, I know you're used to Kyle being able to work against yellow objects just fine. And ever since Hal overcame fear we learned that all Lanterns could all do it as well." Green Lantern John Stewart looked his friend in the eyes. "But it's not easy. It's _hard_. Very, very hard.

"If that were a normal giant yellow beast I'm sure I could hold it. But this thing… it's just made of pure power. Even if it were brown or blue or any other color, I don't think I could hold it back. And this thing is not just yellow. It's _glowing_ yellow, radiating waves of yellow that feel like the power of fear passing right through my will. I can't, Wally. I just can't."

Superman got to his feet just as the creature broke free of the green light constructs created by Green Lantern. He realized he was dealing with a very different threat than the one posed by a saiyan fully in control of its powers. Goku was dangerous because he focused his power and energy into precise strikes and was extremely cunning in his battle strategy. While physically much weaker than a Kryptonian, his ability to focus his energy with each strike and direct it over small, critical areas, or released as explosive energy, more than made up for comparative physical frailty.

The oozaru, in contrast, was berserk and out of control, but it was a match for the Kryptonian in terms of raw strength. The incredible energies of a super saiyan were multiplied ten times over in the form of the Golden Great Ape, but rather than being focused and released through carefully controlled techniques, the vast energies were converted into pure physical power. The energy not only increased the mass, it infused the beast with power running through every muscle. Not only was it made stronger, it was even faster than the humanoid saiyan form. Fortunately, while it was incredibly quick, its massive size made if far less agile and it lacked the martial cunning of a non-transformed saiyan.

The Man of Steel flew towards the Golden Great Ape and struck it a blow that would have smashed through a mountain range or launched a chunk of land the size of Hawaii into orbit. But the oozaru merely staggered back a couple steps. Kal-El did not take the time to marvel at the giant beast's resilience. Instead, he followed up that strike with a combination of punches, trying to knock the creature back further. However, he soon had to abandon the attack when the huge beast swiped at him with its huge hands.

Luckily, the red-caped hero managed to evade the grasp of the massive beast. The enormous ape persisted in its attack, roaring as it attempted to swat the hero out of the air, but Kal-El managed to main just ahead of each swipe. Superman tried flying circles around the giant ape, and initially that caused it to spin around while he flew down to try and knock its feet out from under it. But he was caught by surprise when the creature's giant tail swooped across and nearly knocked him out of the sky.

Bursts of green energy shot up from the island surface, temporarily distracting the giant ape and allowing Superman to get clear. A flash of orange moving faster than either Superman or the transformed saiyan could even follow swirled around the beast, and seconds later, its feet were completely covered by gravel from the island's surface. Unfortunately, that only had the effect of angering the beast. It broke free of the gravel effortlessly, sending chunks of rock in every direction, turned its baleful red eyes on the form of the Green Lantern trying to hold him back with chains and walls. Faster than John Stewart could believe, the beast was over him, smashing its mammoth golden fist down to where he stood.

The Man of Steel flew between the fist and the Justice League member. He raised his hands up as if he were going to catch the hand in mid-air. But for all his power, he was unable to stop that fist from smashing down.

* * *

><p>.<p>

* * *

><p>The cloaked figure watched the battle taking place from miles away. He hung stationary in the air, impassively waiting. When the clouds parted and the saiyan transformed into a humongous beast, his heart started pounding. The cloaked being had not expected anything so dramatic, so sensational.<p>

He felt it when the creature stomped his feet and sent a shockwave throughout the entire world. It was an impressive display.

But it was when the creature took Superman's best hits as if they were nudges and struck back that really excited him. This was turning out even better than he had hoped. Not only was the creature out-powering the Man of Steel, it was a massive, gigantic, destructive menace. It was larger than life.

The cloaked figure saw the oozaru knock Superman into the ground. Its foot was raised up to stomp on this world's most powerful hero and end the Man of Steel's life.

Now. Now was the time. His time.

* * *

><p>.<p>

* * *

><p>The entire world shook.<p>

Seismologists around the globe recorded the shockwave. As soon as the location of the event's epicenter was determined, oddly no where near any fault line between tectonic plates, world leaders were alerted. Coastal tsunami warnings were issued.

Lex Luthor was already in a secure bunker deep beneath Metropolis watching events unfold from a remote satellite. He had immediately been alerted that the tremor had originated from the location of his formerly secret weapons testing site in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, seconds after the event occured and minutes before the world leaders knew what had happened.

At first, Luthor didn't realize where the giant ape had come from. But applying Occam's Razor to the situation he came to the conclusion that the ape was Goku, or Kakkarot, or whatever the alien's name was. What were the odds that he would bring in an alien to fight on the same day a giant monkey would appear? And it made more sense to him that Superman would fight a monster like this than the strangely cheerful martial artist he had dealt with—before he turned psychotic from that very intriguing incident with kryptonite. Unfortunately, Superman and the beast were moving too fast for the satellite to track, and all he was able to see were blurs of indistinguishable motion. That thing was as quick as Superman.

For a moment, he wondered if he summoning this creature to his world would turn out to be disastrous. After all, it was done at the behest of a devil. But then Lex saw the creature smash the Man of Steel to the ground and prepare to stomp on him. The camera was able to capture that moment where Superman was not moving and the beast's foot was poised above him.

Lex couldn't help but smile. Whatever the consequence, this would be worth it.

* * *

><p>.<p>

* * *

><p>A streaking form flew through the sky and struck the oozaru in the back at top velocity. Off-balance from trying to squish a superhero, the great beast stumbled forward, missing its mark, but sending off another massive shockwave throughout the world. The Martian Manhunter pulled up from his attack and blasted the great yellow primate with his Martian Vision.<p>

That got the oozaru's attention. It roared and beat its chest, then swung its great fist. But the fist passed straight through intangible Martian. J'onn J'onzz floated just ahead of the beast, letting the creature swipe at him and roar at him, giving his friend the time he needed to recover.

It only took a few seconds for Superman to get back to his feet. That blow from the creature had hurt badly. It had shaken him, as well, but he had no time to wait to fully recover from the blow. He immediately flew back up to engage the creature.

He felt the Martian's mental communication in his head.

'_I have been trying to break through the creature's mind and end this, but it is proving extremely difficult. This is neither of the personalities I sensed before. It's something entirely different. It doesn't seem to have any controlling thought at all, only survival and destruction._'

Superman acknowledged that he understood. He would keep the beast occupied while J'onn continued trying to try to use his telepathic powers to stop it from causing more destruction. The Martian Manhunter faded from sight, and for several moments Superman managed to keep ahead of the super-sized simian that was rampaging on the island. He flew circles around the great beast, smashing his fist behind its knees and pummeling its neck when it failed to follow him.

To Wally West and the Martian, the event seemed like an epic ballet motion with the Man of Steel dodging and striking, while the oversized golden ape swatted clumsily, though always with a dangerous quickness. But to normal eyes, it was just a brief blur of red and blue circles around the gargantuan beast. And then Kal-El made a mistake. He came around the beast at the wrong angle suddenly everything stopped as the massive monstrosity grabbed him in one of its enormous hands.

The Man of Steel felt a crushing strength grasping him. He had been in this situation before, trapped in the hand of a giant being, but rarely had the being trying to crush him been as strong as him. The oozaru roared in triumph and squeezed his victim even harder.

The Martian Manhunter gave up his attempt to assault the bestial creature's mind and tried to pry its massive fingers loose, returning to tangibility. John Stewart focused all of his will into his ring to create a construct of gigantic "jaws of life" to attempt to pry its fingers open. Yet the Martian who had helped tow a moon from its orbit and the Green Lantern whose will had once exceeded the limits of what was called the most powerful weapon in the universe could not pry their fellow Justice League member free. And Superman himself was being crushed.

The Golden Great Ape gripped the tiny man in its hands, the pesky little man that had flown around it, and squeezed even harder. Despite himself, the Man of Steel's mouth opened as the air within it was forcibly expelled and the Kryptonian yelled in agony. He was beginning to feel his bones weaken. Hearing his victim yell, the oozaru brought hero up to face to glare at it and roared in rage. Then it made a fist and brought it up above the trapped hero, preparing to smash it down onto his exposed head. The beast pounded the fist down, and in the fraction of a fraction of a second before the blow would hit, each hero frantically thought of how they could avert the blow. None of them came up with an answer. The fist came down.

But impossibly, it stopped before striking the head of the trapped Kryptonian.

There, beneath the massive fist of the creature, was the muscular figure of a man wearing a tattered cloak raising his hands up above his head, holding the oozaru's fist from smashing down. For a moment, the man turned to smile at the dumbstruck onlookers. Then, in an instant, he flew the twenty feet to the Golden Great Ape's head and smashed the beast a right hook into its face.

The creature roared in pain, staggering backwards. Kal-El was released from the creature's face and simply fell to the island's surface.

Then the cloaked figure threw off the cloak that had hidden his identity to reveal a black suit and a powerfully muscled physique. He had jet black hair and a face that looked exactly like a younger version of Superman. His suit had a matching black cape and a great silver 'S' shape emblazoned boldly across it.

The oozaru roared its anger and swung its great fists at the black-clad newcomer. But this flying man didn't move. He blocked the strike with one hand. Then he smashed the huge creature in the chest. The beast was as tall as a ten story building, weighed over a thousand tons, and was infused with enough energy to resist The Man of Steel's most powerful strikes. But when struck by that blow, it flew backwards from and splashed down a thousand feet away from the island's shore into the ocean.

There was a sneer on the man's face as he looked down at the blue and red costumed Superman who was motionless down below him. "How pathetic. Getting beaten up by a monkey." He turned his gaze to the other heroes present, his eyes lingering on Wally West for a moment before sweeping back around to glare at the Martian Manhunter. "Looks like the lot of you are not up to this challenge. This isn't a job for weaklings. This is a job," he paused in his speech dramatically, "for SUPERMAN!"

"And I mean the real Superman," he continued. "Not this pale imitation. This sad echo," he said pointing down to the defeated hero below him. "The real Superman," the black-costumed Superman repeated as he jerked his thumb towards himself.

It took a few seconds for the shock of the sudden intervention to wear off and the shock of the identity of the man they were now facing to begin to register. The being before them was a nightmare. He was Superboy Prime, the last surviving Kryptonian from a universe once known as Earth Prime, and an out of control psychotic who had murdered hundreds of super heroes and villains alike across multiple universes. He had killed many of their friends before finally being blasted out of existence by the sacrifice of one of the immortal Oan Guardians.

This was the man who had just saved their Superman from imminent death. But what would he do next?

An eruption of water from the ocean put an end to any speculation about what Superboy Prime, or now as he was calling himself, Superman Prime, was going to do. The Golden Oozaru exploded up from the water, sending out waves that would devastate the coastal lands of the world.

Superman Prime didn't care about that. If he took the time to think about it, he would probably be pleased that this gigantic threat was so dangerous. It would make his victory look even more impressive.

Fortunately for everyone within a hundred miles of the coast, Green Lantern John Stewart did care. Before the waves got too far out, he created a barrier of green energy around the affected waters that prevented the catastrophe from occurring. Wally West heaved a sigh of relief, glad that he didn't have to try to counter that tidal wave. He had been doing that near constantly since the battle had begun.

The gigantic simian landed back on the island, the weight of its arrival sending cracks throughout the rocky surface of the artificial island. The great beast beat its chest and roared. Then it opened its great maw and a golden beam of power shot out to blast forward. The beam was as wide as a house and shot out as fast as light and energy travel.

The black-suited Superman easily dodged out of the beam's way. The Earth, however, was not so nimble.

The golden hued energy shot out towards the horizon, skimming over the ocean. Where the energy touched the water, only a column of steam remained. Where the beam touched the ocean floor, the rock became less than dust. Where the beam finally struck the Earth in force, there was an explosion of energy that obliterated the ocean floor and all the water around it in an area the size of Kansas. Not a single particle of rock, water, or vapor remained within the area of destruction as the energy blast turned in upon itself in concentric spheres of decreasing volume, the largest of which towered up twenty miles beyond the Earth's atmosphere. It was fortunate that the blast imploded back inwards, for if the blast had turned outward, the entire planet would have been destroyed.

Turning his head to see the result of the explosion, the black clad powerhouse grinned. "This is a threat beyond you all!" Superman Prime exulted. "This world needs ME."

The Golden Great Ape targeted its rage on the one speaking, swatting at Superman Prime with a snarl. But Superboy Prime blocked each strike with his forearms. He was barely even moved by the blows.

"And I think it's about time that world saw that I am its real hero. I am the true Superman!"

And with that, Superman Prime rammed his fist into the golden oozaru's abdomen with force great enough to send a crack through the entire planet. Instead of being cracked in half, though, the Great Ape was smashed up into the sky, nearly to a low orbit.

It would crash back to the ground over two thousand miles away. The city of Philadelphia would gain its claim to King Kong style fame when the neighborhood of Roxborough was devastated from a mighty monkey falling from the sky.


	7. Chapter 7: Things Destroyed

**Chapter 7: Things Destroyed**

John Stewart, J'onn J'onnz, and Wally West watched in shock as the oozaru flew away, struck by the force of the black caped Superman's blow. Superman Prime remained stationary in the air momentarily, gloating, before he flew off in the direction he had launched the Golden Great Ape. The three heroes then turned to help Superman up off the ground.

The Man of Steel had sustained serious injuries. While he had encountered incredibly strong enemies and powers beyond his ability to resist, never since his brawl with the brutal Doomsday had he been as physically damaged by an attack. The damage was not quite as extensive as that inflicted on him by the Kryptonian monster, but another few seconds and it would have been. Still, it would take months of normal exposure to yellow sunlight for him to regain his full strength.

The Man of Steel got to his feet with a hint of a smile on his face. "Maybe," he said weakly, "this will be what he needs to really become a hero. Maybe he's right and he is what the people need now."

"I do not think so," The Martian Manhunter said, coming down to support his friend. The remark drew a questioning look from Superman. "I can tell he is unchanged from before. His actions are selfish and reckless. I fear this battle will put even more lives in danger."

Kal-El nodded. He knew his fleeting hope was little more than self-delusion. "You're probably right. But in any case, we've got to be there to try to stop the devastation. If Prime kills him quick it will be a sad loss, but fewer people will die. If they drag things out, millions of lives will be lost."

"You're in no condition to fight, Clark," Wally said.

"No, I'm not," the man in the red cape and blue tights agreed. "We're not going there to fight. We're going there to stop a fight if we can. And if we can't, to make sure as few people die as possible."

John Stewart nodded. "My ring is down to 2.3 percent charge. I'll need to recharge it to be of much use, but I'll join you there as soon as I can."

"Alright, guys," Wally said with a grin, "race you there!" With that, an orange-reddish blur sped off across the surface of the ocean.

Green Lantern straightened his body and flew off to retrieve his recharging lantern. Martian Manhunter made as if to assist Superman in flying, but the Kryptonian waved him off. "Flying has always come as naturally for me as walking, J'onn. I'll be able to make it on my own."

The two heroes flew off towards the east coast.

* * *

><p>.<p>

* * *

><p>The neighborhood of Roxborough looked like it had been struck by a meteor shower just before a tornado ripped through it. Broken buildings still crumbled in the aftermath of the gigantic golden being crashing into them from the sky. All across the area there were screams of fear, pain, and loss. At the epicenter of this disaster was the transformed form of Goku, a gigantic golden ape who had just been tossed across an ocean. In the form of the oozaru, Goku had no sense of himself. All he had a sense of was rage at being struck as he had been. The Golden Great Ape got to its massive feet and let out a roar of anger.<p>

A streak of black was seen as the form of Superman Prime arrived on the scene to confront the mighty oozaru. He hadn't expected it to get up so quickly. But that didn't matter. In fact, it was good in its own way. Better for the people to see him put the monster down. The helicopters from the press were already arriving. People on the street were looking up. Some of them were gasping. Some of them were cheering. The call of "Superman!" was easy for the Kryptonian from another universe to make out. It was time for these people to learn who Superman really was.

The Kryptonian shouted in a voice loud enough that they could all hear. "You call out for Superman? But which Superman are you calling for? The one this beast beat to the ground? The one who couldn't save you?"

The oozaru roared and began stomping around on the ground. Its power was not nearly abated, and the moon was shining full and bright up on the coast. Night had just fallen on the city of Philadelphia and it would be many hours before the sun would rise or the moon set. Where the beast stomped, cracks in the earth appeared and earthquakes as powerful as the one the city had just felt devastated the entire area even further.

Annoyed with the interruption, Superman Prime sped towards the gigantic beast and knocked him straight into the ground with an overhand punch. The ground beneath the oozaru swallowed him up. Then black suited Superman took back to the air and continued talking.

"The one you call Superman is weak. This ape was crushing him, and it was I who had to save him. Without me, there would be nothing to save you from this menace!"

Behind Superman Prime, the Golden Oozaru had risen back up. Its huge red eyes were focused intensely on the hated figure before it. In silent rage, the beast glowered down at the tiny figure. Behind the oblivious Kryptonian, arcs of power flashed around the creature, curling around its enormous form like tendrils of lightning. And then the creature began to grow, its mass increasing even further with the increased power. Its heft had increased by a third and it had gotten even taller.

The Martian Manhunter and Superman arrived then. They were just in time to see Superboy Prime standing with his back to the great towering beast, giving a speech to the crowd of survivors that had gathered to watch Superman deal with what had just happened. The helicopters hovered a distance away with their cameras trained on the scene. And then a burst of pure power erupted from the roaring beast, sending bursts of lightning-like power into the sky and a blast of wind that knocked the helicopters down to the ground.

Superman Prime turned to the sound of the explosion of energy with snarl on his face. That beast should have stayed down until he was ready for it to get up. Then he turned to throw another punch at the creature. But this time, he was too slow. The oozaru had swung its massive hand at him and swatted him before he had moved. With the creature's increase in power, it had also increased in speed as well.

The black figure smashed down to the ground at a velocity that sent him through buildings in an adjoining area, down into the pavement, and below the streets. The oozaru followed after his crashing victim. The Golden Great Ape, now a couple stories taller than he had been previously, charged through the area, trampling buildings, cars and people and roaring in its rage. Thousands died in the rampage.

It could have been worse, though. Superman, despite his injuries, was still able to move fast enough to save hundreds from being crushed beneath the beast's feet. The Flash evacuated as many people as he could from in front of the creature's path. The Martian Manhunter was able to prevent some of the buildings from collapsing. But even with their heroic efforts, there was death and screaming throughout the city.

There was screaming from _below_ the city street as well, but not screams of fear. An enraged Superboy Prime flew back up towards the oozaru and punched at the great creature. The oozaru was knocked back again, creating a mile long path of destruction. But it rolled to its feet, seemingly no less powerful and clearly unharmed.

The devastation was terrible. Wherever the beast touched, entire neighborhoods were flattened. Where it fell, earthquakes were set off that rocked not only the city, but also the entire state. And it was clear that this was just the beginning.

"Oh my God! Their battle is going to destroy everything. What is Prime thinking?"

"He isn't thinking," J'onn answered.

Superman flew onto the scene, his blue and red costume distinct above the rooftops. Nobody was watching now, though. Anyone not dead was either fleeing, or trying to get through the destruction to dig out some loved one who had not been so lucky. The Man of Steel stopped a bit below and slightly behind Superman Prime hoping not to agitate him by confronting him face to face.

"You've got to stop this, Prime! This battle is too costly. We need to think of a way to contain it, not have a brawl here in the middle of the city. People are dying!"

"You don't tell me what to do!" the black-clad Superman spat. "You're nothing to me! Just an imitation. I'm the real Superman!"

"You're right," the Man of Steel agreed. "You've made your point. You are the stronger one. You can stop things that I cannot. I am willing to admit this." Superboy Prime looked at his counterpart skeptically. Superman pleaded, "Just stop this battle before anyone else gets hurt. We can do this together…"

Superman Prime's eyes glowed a fierce red. "I DON'T NEED YOU!" And with a backhand, the black uniformed Prime slapped Superman down to the ground.

The gigantic golden ape and the wrathful Kryptonian continued their battle and the Earth continued to take punishment it could not afford. Within moments, no structure over three stories in the city of Philadelphia were left standing from the monstrous earthquakes and quake damage spread out in waves over the entire region. Beams of red hot energy shot from Superman to rake the land and turn rock into a molten mess, but when they struck the oozaru it simply enraged the beast further.

Superman looked at J'onn with a look of horror on his face. "I can't stop them. Even if I were at full strength, there's just nothing I can do. And I know Prime is still not even giving it everything he's got. He wants the world to see him as the hero when he defeats something I couldn't. But when I tried convince him to really be a hero by stopping this destruction, he wouldn't listen." Superman hung his head.

The Martian Manhunter had no answer. "He doesn't know what being a hero is. He cannot be reasoned with."

The Man of Steel looked up. "Maybe we can't reason with Prime. But perhaps we can reason with Goku. Whatever this giant ape transformation is, it has radically affected his mind, maybe even more than the black kryptonite did. But I'm going to need you to take a great risk."

Superman Prime fought the brutish creature with a sneer on his face. The beast was big and fast, fast enough now that it could land a blow on him without having to take him by surprise, but nothing it did had really hurt him. All it was doing was making him angry.

Another blow from the creature's giant hands clipped the black-caped Superman and sent him careening away from the beast. This time, though, Superman Prime stopped his momentum and turned back to fly straight back at the giant ape. He screamed out a primal rage and flew toward the oozaru. The beast opened its own mouth as if to scream back in return, but rather than emitting a sound, it released a blast of power back towards Superman Prime.

The beam hit the Kryptonian head on. Had a blast of this power struck a planet the size of Jupiter, the planet would have been blown apart, most of its mass completely obliterated. Fortunately for the world and its inhabitants, the power of the attack was concentrated into area of the cylinder encompassing the beam and directed inwards rather than outwards. Had a Kryptonian from universe been caught in this blast, their bodies would have been completely ripped apart, destroyed to the very last atom, their physical form converted into nothing but wild energy particles. For a being such as Superman, it would have meant death, with no coming back.

Superman Prime, however, was from another universe and in another league entirely. No physical strength had ever truly harmed him. Energy blasts that could annihilate lesser beings merely tickled him. A wall of Green Lantern willpower 300 miles thick had only slowed him down. He was a juggernaut of power and hubris.

He flew through the energy. At least, he started to. As he tried to turn against the tide of this massive power, though, his path stalled and he began to really feel the intensity of the energy. Impossibly, the massive power hurled him backwards. Impossibly, he felt an incredible burning pain from the explosive energy turning upon him. Pain! Impossibly, he was thrown back to endure an explosion of horrendous magnitude that blasted him back miles and miles away, stunned.

The oozaru roared and beat its chest. It continued to stamp its feet, looking for something else to destroy. And then the blue and red streak of Superman appeared before it again. That little nuisance was back.

"Goku! It's me! You have to listen!"

The Golden Great Ape glared at the being in front of him and roared. It showed no recognition of the man.

"You are killing thousands of people. If you don't stop, you will kill millions! Maybe even this whole world!" The beast swiped at the man in the cape, but he had flown far enough back that the attack missed.

And then suddenly, there was another person standing in the air before the beast. "GOKU! Stop your fighting this instant! How can you do this?" The voice that was shouting at him, scolding him, was somehow familiar. It was a chiding he had heard before. The woman had long black hair, wore a traditional dress… there was a name, Chi-chi. The memory held a connection to fear for some reason, a rolling pin smacked upside his head. The beast roared and swatted at the woman.

Superman called out to his friend, "That was working, J'onn. It was starting to recognize that memory, try something else!"

J'onn J'onzz had barely managed to evade that last swipe from the humongous and incredibly quick beast, but he nodded. The memory of his wife Chi-chi had gotten through, but it was not a very peaceful memory. Perhaps a best friend. The Martian Manhunter shifted into the form of a short, bald headed human wearing an orange uniform. J'onn knew from Goku's memories that this was not what the man looked like at present, but it was the image most strongly associated with the identity.

"Hey, Goku! Come on man, it's me, Krillin! Stop all this fooling around and…"

The oozaru grabbed the small bald-headed figure and roared at it. It was feeling strangely confused by this, as if there was something there in his mind he should remember. But the little bald guy was just too annoying. Time to squeeze it and make it go away.

The Martian Manhunter could have turned immaterial. That would have gotten him out of danger. But doing so would make the creature disbelieve in what it saw. He needed it to believe. He could feel Goku's consciousness returning, the familiar images organizing the thoughts and will of his personality and ego into a coherent force. But too late. The beast started to squeeze.

"DADDY!" called out the voice of young Gohan. Goku looked out through his massive red eyes at his son. His son was calling out to him in pain. "Daddy, please, don't hurt me!" He was hurting his own son. GOHAN!

The gigantic ape hand released the Martian Manhunter, who floated down to the ground, injured, but not too badly. Superman looked on as the massive red eyes of the great ape began to contract. Then they closed, and the huge ape form began to shrink. The great oozaru decreased in size and mass rapidly, and in a matter of a few seconds, all that was left was the naked form of a powerfully muscled man with long black hair, red fur covering his legs and most of his body.

"Goku?" Superman asked, as he flew down directly in front of the powerful saiyan.

Goku looked up, his elongated eyes rimmed in red. The saiyan gave a smile to the Kryptonian and turned a thumbs up for him.

"Yeah, it's me," he said, looking at himself. "But a new me."

Superman looked at the saiyan with some concern. "What do you mean by a new you?"

Goku dropped his serious look and grinned. "Don't worry, I'm really fine now. I don't really remember much since the bank vault, but I do remember we were fighting, and I remember transforming back from being a giant ape."

Superman released a sigh.

"That must have been scary for you," Goku continued with a grin.

The Martian Manhunter flew down to join them, morphing back into his normal form. "Sorry about the deception, Goku, but it was the only way—"

Goku shook his head. "No, I should thank you. If you hadn't have done what you did, this whole world would have been in danger. You helped me remember who I was and take control of myself and my full power."

Goku flexed his muscles, going through a quick blur of martial arts routines. "I feel stronger, and faster. But I can't really say I like the change in how I look."

Superman gave his friend a smile, glad he had returned to his old self. "I have to agree. That karate outfit and the green eyes were pretty cool. But I guess I can get used to this."

The saiyan shook his head. "I know this is a fusion of my heritage and identity, but this doesn't feel like it's complete." Goku narrowed his eyes in concentration. The red fur receded, leaving his skin bear once more, the red lining around his eyes faded as well, while his irises once more turned to their fierce green. Goku gave himself a once over with his eyes, and then focused his mind once again to materialize a large blue karate gi to cover his body.

"There, that's better," he concluded. "That fur made me look like an un-vacuumed carpet. Chi-chi would never go for that!"

"So, tell me, what all happened after that bank vault? It's all really hazy except a few flashes of fighting. Hope I didn't cause too much trouble." The expression on everyone's faces told him everything. Goku looked around at the devastation. The city around him was in ruins.

"Gee. I can't tell you how sorry I am."

Superman and Martian Manhunter looked at him without knowing what to say. He had to be going through in incredible inner torment.

"Well, don't worry, things will be okay," the saiyan concluded as if moving on with life.

The two Justice League members' jaws dropped. How could he say that? They didn't really blame him for what he had done, he was clearly out of his mind, but for him not to feel anything about it? "Don't you feel even a little bad about this?" Superman asked.

"Oh, I feel bad for sure, Kal-El, but it's not all that bad. I'm sure we can fix it."

"Fix it?" the two asked incredulously.

"Sure. I'll just contact King Kai and see about collecting all the Dragon Balls. But first," Goku said, tossing a small green bean to Superman. "Eat this. You look pretty ragged out from our fight. Must have been a good one. Too bad I can't remember much of it." Seeing Superman looking dubiously a the bean, Goku explained, "It's a senzu bean. It will help you regain your strength."

Superman somewhat apprehensively put the bean in his mouth. As soon as he chewed, however, he felt his full strength return. Surprisingly enough, he felt even more powerful than before.

'_King Kai. Can you hear me?' _Goku projected with his mind.

'_Goku? Goku? Where are you? I can't feel you anywhere! We've been looking for you everywhere!'_

'_I've been taken to another universe. But hey, there's a problem. While I was here, my tail regrew during a full moon and I turned into a Great Ape. A lot of innocent people got killed. Is there any way you can help gather the Dragon Balls to wish them back?'_

'_Me? What do you think I am, some sort of fetching dog to go get things for you? I'm a King!'_ Goku's old mentor complained mentally, touchy about the respect he felt he was owed.

'_I know, King Kai, but maybe you can help me contact Dende? You're the only one I knew would be able to receive my message from so far away.'_

'_Okay, okay, I'll try.'_

'_Thanks, King Kai. You're the best.'_

'_Yeah, yeah, I know. But for some reason you only call me when something terrible has happened. Some grateful student you are.'_

'_King Kai! Come on! I invited you to our Halloween party!'_

When he was finished with his telepathic communication, Goku nodded. "There, they should be getting the Dragon Balls together now. With Bulma's dragon radar and my friends helping, it shouldn't take too—"

"**WHAT IS HAPPENING HERE?**" boomed a voice from up above them.

Superman Prime floated in the air, his eyes glowing a fierce red. It had taken him a minute to regain his senses and his bearings. When he did, he had noticed the giant golden ape was gone, and now in its place, he saw that the small black haired alien had returned. This was not how he wanted things.

"Calm down," Superman said carefully. "Goku has regained his mind. He was just temporarily insane due to Kryptonite poisoning. Then something about the full moon changed him into that giant ape. But he's regained control with our help. You don't have to—"

Prime's face was murderous. "You what? No! This ruins everything! You've destroyed my chance to be the hero here!"

"Huh?" Goku said, blinking at him.

Superman Prime flew down and grabbed Goku by the neck. "Transform back! Transform back into the giant monkey right NOW!"

* * *

><p><em><strong>Author's Note:<strong> While this transformation borrows from GT, this is the only connection with that series that will be seen in this fic._


	8. Chapter 8: Yes, They Fight Now

**Chapter 8: Yes, They Fight Now.**

"Whoah, hold on now," Goku said, putting one hand up to forestall the furious man. "I'm not attacking anyone now. And I'm really sorry about killing all those people."

Superman Prime stared at the saiyan in disbelief. In his new form, Goku was taller than him, with black hair forming thick, long spikes that curled around his head. But the saiyan had become calm. The mania from before was gone.

"No! Don't say you're sorry. Sorry won't bring back the dead," Prime said, lifting Goku off the ground with one hand. "You can't just undo what you've done. You need to pay and the people need to see you pay. By my hand."

Superman, his red cape whipping behind him in the wind, carefully approached the two. "Look, it's over. There doesn't need to be any more fighting. The world has suffered enough."

Prime turned to glower at Superman. "Shut up, you… you fake. I'll be the one to decide when everyone has suffered enough for what they have done. But first," Superboy Prime turned to glare at Goku, "I'm going to finish off this fool and then the whole world will call me a hero. Like I deserve! Now, transform back into that giant ape so I can show the world what I can do, what the _real_ Superman can do."

Goku shook his head. "Sorry, I don't think I can any more. I'm standing here under a full moon and I'm not becoming an oozaru," Goku sounded genuinely apologetic. "I've ascended beyond that. I've merged my primal saiyan power and my natural form into one combined one. Besides, it would be crazy to turn back into that beast. It's way too destructive, even if I'm in my right mind."

Superman Prime's expression became a mask of anger and he cocked his fist back to strike Goku. But the super saiyan calmly grabbed the hand Prime was holding him with by the wrist. Prime smirked when Goku was unable to budge his hold, but Goku remained unperturbed.

"Wow, even in this form I'm no match for you in brute strength. You really are strong." But then Goku pressed a pressure point on Prime's wrist and mechanically the Kryptonian's fingers released their grip. Then, to Superboy Prime's shock, Goku twisted the last son of Krypton's wrist way from his muscular saiyan chest. Despite having taken the name of Super_man_ for himself, he was being treated like a boy.

The pain was intolerable for Superman Prime. Any pain was really intolerable. Even as a child growing up on Earth, where the exploits of heroes were just a thing of comic books, before his own super powers had developed, Superboy did not experience real pain. It had taken the passing of a comet to unlock his abilities, but his Kryptonian physiology prevented him from having injuries that really hurt. So, when Goku twisted Superman Prime's arm, he was unprepared to deal with the sensation. He reacted with rage, his eyes glowing a bright red, as they so often did.

Twin beams of heat vision blazed out from Superboy Prime, burning straight towards the man who stood there twisting his arm. At that range, in just his super saiyan form, that attack would have been too quick for Goku to dodge. As a Golden oozaru he would have been too large and too unaware to avoid it. But as a Super Saiyan 4, it wasn't even a close call. Goku released Prime's wrist and dodged to the side.

"I'll KILL you! I'll kill you all TO DEATH!" Superman Prime screamed and flew back towards Goku in a rage.

The super saiyan blinked his wide, slanted eyes as he dodged several punches thrown by the enraged Kryptonian. "Kill us all _to death_?" Goku asked quizzically. "Is there any other way to kill someone?" The saiyan evaded several punches while he continued to think aloud. "Let's see, kill them to the moon? No. Kill them to the bathroom? I don't think so… hmm. Kill you to tomorrow? Maybe. If you could bring them back to life and keep killing them over and over again for a full day."

Goku mused over this while the black-suited Superman threw punch after wild punch, which Goku dodged without even raising a hand. With each fraction of a second that Prime failed to strike his opponent, he grew more and more frustrated. Then he threw another punch only to find that his opponent was gone. He looked around, only to hear a voice from behind him.

"I've gotta say, that's probably one of the worst lines I've ever heard. I wouldn't go around repeating it. Unless you want someone to _laugh_ to death."

Prime screamed. "I HATE speedsters!" He turned to try to punch Goku again, but the saiyan's nimble form was gone before the blow landed.

Now Goku was standing a short distance away. A reddish orange blur appeared beside him. Wally West put his hand on Goku's shoulder and said nonchalantly, "I gotta say, Goku, you are fast. Welcome to the club. We meet in Prime's room under his bed. The password is, 'nya, nya, nya, nya-nya, you can't catch me'. See you there when that prick goes to brush his teeth."

The saiyan laughed good naturedly for a moment, but then turned to look at Prime with a straight face. "Look, seriously, let's stop this. I understand you want revenge against the monster that caused all that damage and took so many lives, but it's unnecessary." Prime dropped his hands to his side to hear what Goku had to say, but kept his hands balled into fists. The saiyan continued, "I'm not that monster any more. And I'm going to make sure everyone who died gets their life back."

"What? That's impossible!" the black caped Superman sneered.

"No, really. On my home world, we have a set of magical balls which summon a powerful dragon spirit. With them, we can summon the Eternal Dragon and wish everyone who died back to life."

"You think I care about all those people who died?" Prime laughed scornfully. "They don't mean anything. They're not even real people." Goku listened in shock as Superman Prime continued. "I just care that the credit that should be going to me is going to this imposter," he said pointing towards Superman. "I'm the REAL Kal-El. I'm the one who deserves to be the champion. And I'm going to tear apart anything and anyone that stands in between me and my rightful destiny. And as of right now, that includes you, too, monkey boy."

With that, Superman Prime charged at Goku at a speed that rapidly increased over the distance he was traveling. Unfortunately for him, the distance was not enough to build up the velocity he would need to actually hit the Super Saiyan 4 Goku. But this time, Goku did not simply dodge. He turned the attack aside, pushing Superboy Prime's arm inward and making it cross over his body awkwardly. With his right hand, Goku made a fist with his knuckles pointed upwards and his elbow at his side, then the saiyan martial artist thrust his fist forward in a quick jab, twisting his fist around as it connected with Superman Prime's gut.

Pain flared through the Kryptonian's body and he doubled over, holding the area where Goku had struck him. Goku had not struck him hard, it had been just a jab, but the placement of the strike was perfect. The energy of Goku's newest, most powerful form flowed through the motion, the ki force of a super saiyan, whose power level had long ago surpassed the strength necessary to shatter a planet, multiplying the raw force of this new form and exploding within the internal organs of the Kryptonian.

Goku backed off while Superman Prime staggered away to deal with the effects of the blow. The super saiyan waited coolly, prepared to continue the battle if needed, but hoping the hotheaded Kryptonian would take the hint and stop his angry assault. He should have continued beating him.

Superman Prime recovered from the pain, wanting nothing more to punch his opponent into oblivion as he had done so many others. Few beings had ever stood up to him for long. He could punch his fist through the bodies of other beings who were supposed to be invulnerable, the massive damage killing them. His first killings had been accidental, due to him not realizing just how strong he was and never having learned to restrain himself. But as he had been confronted by more enemies, he knew full well how powerful his punches were, but Prime killed his much weaker opponents just the same. However, he was coming to understand that he couldn't kill this opponent if he couldn't hit him.

So, when the pain subsided, he dashed over the rubble in the streets of Philadelphia and lifted an apartment complex, one that had not been previously destroyed in the attacks, from out of its foundations and threw it at Goku.

The super saiyan was shocked by this attack. He could sense that there were still some people inside the building, their life signs were incredibly faint as they had no power to speak of, but they were still in there. He couldn't simply dodge and let the people die. Blasting the building was certainly out of the question.

Goku dematerialized and appeared beneath the structure, matching his own flight to the apartment complex's trajectory. The saiyan could see that Prime's callous uprooting of the building complex had so severely weakened the structure that it was already beginning to collapse from the bottom in mid-flight. Strictly speaking, an apartment building is not particularly aerodynamic either, and the wind force from being hurled through the air was already starting to tear it apart. It was going to take a miracle for Goku to save the people inside.

As the building rose up to the apex of its arc, Goku extended his ki energy to encompass the entire outer structure of the building. It was much more effort than simply holding up the building with brute strength. Maintaining the structural integrity of the place was mixed effort of mind, body, and spirit. With a bit of practice, he could do this effortlessly, but being that it was his first time, he had to strain himself to be able to accomplish it. Still, in the end, he managed to redirect the housing complex projectile to an open space in one of the neighborhood parks and set it down.

"Are you crazy? There were people in there! If you want to fight me, then fight me, but don't bring innocent people into this!"

Wally West shook his head. The turnaround from the psychotic Kakkarot madly flinging balls of energy to destroy Metropolis to the hero who was concerned for preserving life was astounding. This really was a completely different person.

Of course, so were the Superman of this world and Superman Prime. Superman had been prepared to act, to fly up and hold the building up, but the saiyan had acted first. The hero in the blue and red suit was grateful Goku had done so. But there was still incredible danger to the people around.

"Goku!" Superman shouted. "We can't fight him here. There are too many people who can get hurt."

Goku nodded.

"Come on, villain. Let's see if you can do any better up in the sky!" and Goku sped upwards high into the air.

"I'm not the villain!" Superboy Prime screamed. Then he shot up after Goku at a frightening speed.

As a super saiyan, Goku was incredibly fast. Even over long distances he could maintain speeds several hundred times the speed of sound and circle the Earth in less than a minute. As an ascended super saiyan he was even faster, able to make the same trip in seconds without draining his power. He could move even faster as a Super Saiyan 3, and after extensive training could even maintain that increased speed for prolonged periods of time. Now, in this latest form, Goku was approaching the point where he could maintain the same raw flight speed as Earth's Superman, approaching the speed of light.

Superman Prime shot up past Goku with ease.

"Now I'm going to show you what I can really do!" Prime yelled out and hooked a punch aimed straight for Goku's head.

Goku dematerialized and the punch flew straight through him. The mighty super saiyan rematerialized just to the side and countered with a tight punch that caught Prime squarely on the chest, knocking the powerful Kryptonian back through the air. Goku flew ahead of Prime, landing another blow, this time an elbow to his abdomen. The martial artist didn't let up, smashing increasingly powerful strikes into his opponent.

Prime felt pain with each and every strike. Never had he felt such punishment before while still powered by a yellow sun. The powerful Kryptonian felt as if he were getting blindsided repeatedly. Goku appeared above him and threw a right-handed strike to his forehead, and then a combination left to shoulder and a right to his heart. A moment later the saiyan was gone, only to reappear on another side to kick him in side, just at the spot where his spine connected with his hips. Prime was sent flying in agony.

Goku felt he had the battle well in hand. He had already struck Prime hundreds of times while the Kryptonian had only managed to throw a couple wild punches that came no where near close enough to being able to hit him. More importantly, he could feel the power within the black clad brawler starting to fade. It was happening slowly, but the energy within the Kryptonian was being depleted. As a Super Saiyan 3, before he ever first encountered Superman back on Namek, he may have run out of energy before managing to wear his opponent down. It would have been a close battle.

But Goku had trained with this day in mind, or at least something similar to it. He had practiced maintaining his Super Saiyan 3 form until he could remain in it all day. What surprised him most was that this newer form was much more efficient than the last, while multiplying both his power and physical strength well beyond what he could achieve previously. It was a power that had always been there, but locked within the oozaru part of his heritage. Now, as a Super Saiyan 4, he had access to it all.

Superman Prime felt incredibly frustrated. He shouldn't be feeling pain. He shouldn't be defenseless against his opponent. He shouldn't be losing. It wasn't fair. He was Superman Prime. And he would not let himself keep getting beaten.

So, he flew away.

Goku watched in surprise as the black suited villain righted himself in the air after the last kick and flew off around the planet. Goku had not expected cowardice from the Kryptonian.

He also didn't expect a huge green straight-jacket to appear around his body or to be punched repeatedly by a huge, green, disembodied fist. The fist smashed into his head several times while Goku looked around for… Green Lantern John Stewart.

"I've got him, Superman!" the Green Lantern called out. "No way he is breaking out of this, I've put half the power of the ring into…"

"John, wait! He's not insane anymore! He's on our side, and the only one who has a chance against Prime!"

Green Lantern froze in surprise. He had just been gone a few minutes to recharge his ring and suddenly things had changed. "Are you sure, Kal-El? I mean…"

Goku burst out of the straight-jacket as if it weren't there, then casually swatted the giant fist away from himself with a backhand. "Don't worry, Mr. Flashlight, I won't hurt anyone."

"That's _Lantern_," the green suited hero replied coldly, though he was left shocked by how easily the saiyan had escaped his construct. The alien wasn't glowing a bright yellow now, but he was still incredibly powerful.

"Of course, right. Sorry. Mr. Lantern. Anyway, you don't have to worry about me. Your Martian friend helped me regain control of myself. Really sorry about the trouble I caused. But—"

'_Goku? Goku are you there?'_

"Hold on a second, long distance call," Goku broke off in the middle of his sentence, putting his finger up to his temple to concentrate more. This drew baffled looks from Green Lantern and the Flash. The Martian and Superman, however, had some idea what was going on.

'_King Kai? Is that you?'_

'_Yes, Goku. We've managed to retrieve the Earth's dragon balls. But there's a problem.'_

'_What problem? They haven't cracked open and become seven evil magical dragons bent on world destruction have they? That would be bad.'_

'_What? No, of course not! What gave you an idea like that?'_

'_Nothing, just something I was worried about. So, what's the problem, King Kai?'_

'_According to Dende, the Eternal Dragon cannot grant your wish. Since Dende's power is limited to things in the universe he is in, the wish can only affect beings in the universe where the wish is made.'_

'_Oh, that's terrible! Then all the people I killed while I was insane are really dead!'_

'_Seems like it. But, I'm trying to contact the Guardians of the Universe where you are at and see if they have a way to bring the Dragon Balls there. Barring that, you can try to find a way to get wishes granted in the universe you are in now.'_

'_I see. Well, thanks for trying, King Kai. I better break the news to everyone.'_

'_Hold on Goku. I've got a joke for you.'_

"_Um…'_

'_What do you call a—"_

"SUPERMAN!" a voice boomed across the air, shrill and demanding. "GOKU!" the voice boomed a second time. "YOU DARE TO CHALLENGE ME? THEN COME AND SHOW ME WHAT YOU CAN DO. COME FACE ME OR THE WORLD WILL SUFFER!"

'_Sorry, King Kai. Gotta go fight an insane alien strong enough to destroy the world with one punch!'_

'_Wh—?'_ King Kai's communication was cut short.

"If you want to fight, then why did you run away?" Goku shouted loudly.

Superman flew up beside Goku. "Um, I don't think he could hear you. He _is_ on the other side of the world."

Goku nodded sheepishly. He didn't have a super shouting voice. "Well then, let's go pay him a visit so he we can have a more private conversation with him. Should we bring your friends along, too?"

"Yes, that would be—"

Goku touched Superman on the shoulder and put two fingers on his forehead. Instantly, he was beside the Flash, Green Lantern, and the Martian Manhunter.

"—good," Superman finished just before the super saiyan grabbed hold of the others and used his instant transmission technique again.

The five of them appeared together on the ground halfway around the world near where Goku had sensed Superman Prime's power. The area was a subtropical beach with a short pier and a line of single story buildings along the beachfront. Superman Prime hovered in the air, high above them.

"Where are we?" John Stewart asked, unfamiliar with the area.

"Peng Chau," Supreman responded instantly. "It's a small island belonging to the Hong Kong Special Administration region of China."

"Doesn't look much like Hong Kong," the green clad hero noted. He had flown through the city once before on Lantern Corps business.

"This is a small village. The metropolitan area is to the east. The larger island of Lantau is just a short jump to our west," the very well traveled Man of Steel supplied. "But why would he want us to come to fight here?"

"I don't know," Goku responded, "but I can feel that his power has returned to full strength again."

Superman looked up at the sky with alarm. There were no stars to be seen, only the warmth of the rising sun. It was a clear, sunny day over the island, with no clouds in sight. Prime was floating there high in the sky soaking up the rays of the sun.

"The sunlight! It's just turning morning here! Back in the western hemisphere night was just falling and he was losing strength against your attacks."

"Oh, I see. I remember you saying something about getting your strength from a yellow sun," Goku replied, remembering from their previous encounter. "Well, you all had better stay out of this then. As strong as you are Kal-El, this evil version of you is much, much stronger."

"You're right, but I have an idea of how I can help. If he can use the sun to his advantage then so can I. If you can hold him off for a few minutes I'll be back to lend you a hand."

"Alright," Goku nodded. "The rest of you, keep out of this," the saiyan said sternly.

It galled the other heroes to hear this, especially from someone who a short time ago had been their opponent, but they knew he was right. Superman Prime had killed dozens of Green Lanterns and several Kryptonians of Superman's level. If they attempted to get mixed up in the battle all they would likely accomplish would be adding their names to his growing list of victims.

Prime waited there in the middle of the sky. Patience was not one of his strong suits. He had an urge to fly back and start the fight again, but he ignored that urge. He needed the sunlight to remain strong. He hoped they didn't take too long. Otherwise, he was going to have to cause some disasters to get some attention.

His patience, as little as he had, was rewarded when the familiar face of Goku popped up in front of him out of nowhere. The saiyan had a cocky smile on his face, just one corner of his mouth turned upwards. The man's bright green eyes bored into his smoldering red ones and a red-furred tail swished behind him.

"You called?" Goku said.

"Get ready to die, monkey," Prime retorted.

"You know, you sound a lot like another villain I knew. His name was Frieza. He was the most powerful being in the galaxy, or at least everyone thought so. But he was arrogant and heartless, murdering people if they displeased him. Until one day, he met me, and tried to tear me down. He called me monkey, too. But in the end, he was beaten by me, beaten by a monkey as he called me," Goku recounted calmly. Then he looked Superman Prime in the eye and added, "Just like you will be."

With yell, the man with the black suit and a silver 'S' emblazoned boldly on it threw a right cross. It was a raged-filled attack, powerful and fast. But he cocked his arm back before he punched, a dead giveaway for Goku. The saiyan simply moved around the blow without retaliating. Prime swung again, another cross coming from the other direction, but Goku simply floated backwards out of its range. Punch after punch missed. Though they were faster than the eye could see, faster than even the Martian Manhunter could follow, Goku was faster yet, and effortlessly dodged each one of them.

There was a reason Superman Prime hated speedsters. It wasn't that he couldn't move as fast as they could. He could move as fast or faster if he really pushed himself to do so. He could even react as fast; his super Kryptonian mind was capable of such a feat. What he lacked, however, was the mental discipline to keep up with the split second calculations such motion entailed. Against Goku, whose incredible speed came from years of constant, intense practice and concentration as much as from his alien physiology, Kal-El from Earth Prime was outmatched and outclassed in both fighting skill and simple mental discipline.

Prime went berserk. He wasn't thinking about what he was doing. There was no strategy to his attacks. He just willed himself to move faster and punch harder, striking all but blindly at his opponent.

It was effective. Goku was forced to block the punches aside, no longer able to anticipate and simply dodge each one because of how wild they were. Despite his increase in physical strength, Goku was still nowhere near Prime's level of brawn. Fusing his saiyan and oozaru forms into a single, powerful form had increased his strength to the point he was nearly on par with the Martian Manhunter, and marginally in the same class as this universe's Kryptonians, but this was nowhere even near close to what Superman Prime's level was. One solid, direct punch from the black clad Kryptonian from the now non-existent Prime universe would be disastrous.

But Goku was not about to let the Kryptonian hit him. His blocks and parries were empowered with ki energy, more than making up for the comparative physical weakness. Prime would flail his arms into a vicious haymaker, but Goku's palm would catch Prime's elbow and throw the Kryptonian off balance. Superman Prime would charge savagely forward, throwing a barrage of hyper-fast cross-cut punches, but Goku would catch each attack by the wrist and guide them harmlessly upwards. When one wild attack managed to slip by Goku's defense, the saiyan took the punch by rolling with its momentum and spinning back to turn that same force back against his opponent with a responding an open-handed strike.

The super saiyan retaliated against the undisciplined offensive with expertly executed counter attacks. When Prime overbalanced to one side, Goku hit him in the kidneys. As the brawler charged forward, Goku flipped over his head and kicked the Kryptonian in the back of the neck. The powerful super saiyan followed up a clean block of a crossing punch with a series of jabs.

Each blow or block sent out shockwaves of force radiating outwards explosively. A kick from Goku sent Prime rocketing off in one direction only to be swiftly tracked down and smashed with a follow-up attack. To the untrained people on the island below, it seemed like there was a constant boom of loud cracking thunder above them. To the Martian Manhunter, it seemed like a series of disconnected events popping across the sky in random locations. Only Wally West was able to follow all the action, and he was amazed by what he saw.

To Superman Prime, it seemed like a nightmare. He felt the blows cracking through his body painfully. The powerful strikes crunched his super-dense body further inward. His own attempts at offense were knocked aside as if he were a child. His use of heat ray vision was ineffectual, once Goku even dematerialized behind him while Prime was firing a longer burst and slammed the Kryptonian's head downward so that the burst of red power burned a gash along his own chest. And then Prime felt a blow strike him from out of nowhere that sent him smashing down to the Earth's surface.

Despite his dominance, Goku's confidence was vanishing. He had the upper-hand, but nothing he was doing was serving to weaken his opponent. He would land a series of powerful strikes, hitting as hard as he could, and Prime's power would drop marginally for a few seconds. But then the black clad villain's power would simply return to its previous level. It didn't matter how much energy the Kryptonian expended in wild flurries of inefficient attacks, it was continuously replenished by the sunlight.

It didn't matter how much superior Goku's technique was than his opponent. If he couldn't injure Prime or drain the Kryptonian's power faster than it was replenished, there was no way for him to win. Goku's strongest physical blows, attacks that in this Super Saiyan 4 form would shatter giant planets, were not doing enough damage fast enough. He had to do something bigger if he wanted to put this enemy down. He cupped his hands by his side.

"Ka—me—ha—me—," Goku intoned his attack, energy building up rapidly between his hands. He his opponent rise out of the crater on the beach and begin to fly up towards him, and then he released the attack with a final shouted syllable "—HA!"

A glowing blue column of energy rocketed down towards Superman Prime. The black-clad super villain saw the bright energy attack coming straight towards him as he was flying upwards. Prime remembered what had happened when he had tried to fly through the beam of power from the Golden Great Ape form and had no desire to repeat that folly. Prime swerved away from the energy beam. And the energy beam swerved to intercept him.

It was incredibly close. Prime barely managed to evade the turning power beam by inches. The beam chased him momentarily before shooting off up into the atmosphere and out into space to slowly fade out and be absorbed back into the void. Superman Prime gritted his teeth in anger and shot off towards Goku with his arm cocked back to punch him.

The saiyan had to dematerialize to avoid the blow.

Prime's attack had started from a distance away, giving him enough time to build up speed too great for Goku to avoid the conventional way. Prime continued his flight path, flying near the speed of light. At this velocity he was also too fast for Goku to counterattack conventionally. Prime circled around and flew back for another strike. The Kryptonian had a wicked grin on his face as he swung his fist at Goku's exposed back.

The grin faded when his fist passed straight through the image. Goku hadn't been there at all. Prime's momentum carried him forward, straight into where the real Goku was waiting with a golden ball of energy. The destructive orb of power exploded right in Superman Prime's chest.

The explosion set the upper atmosphere in motion, the force of the winds blowing in all different directions. A brilliant flash of light lit up the sky of the entire northern hemisphere, temporarily outshining the brightness of the sun. The area where the energy exploded hung as a gigantic sphere of destruction, the very air broken into subatomic particles, converted into exotic energies. The explosive force would have been enough to destroy all the planets in the solar system combined together.

Slowly, the energy of the ball faded. Air rushed back in to fill the void, briefly becoming plasma as the super heated area cooled and the majority of the excess power bled off into space. When the last of the effects finally faded, there was nothing in sight. Nothing remained where Superman Prime had once been. Goku let out a sigh of relief and he let his shoulders slump for just an instant.

It was one instant too long.

Goku felt the return of the power a fraction of a second before Superman Prime arrived from back around the planet. Goku moved to avoid the attack, but a fraction of an instant too late. Prime's fist missed the saiyan, but managed to catch a hold of something. When the Kryptonian came to a stop, Prime was grasping Goku's long, red saiyan tail.

Long ago, Goku had trained his tail to be strong. It had long been his greatest weakness and his grandfather Gohan had returned from the realm of the dead for the purpose of teaching Goku to defend himself from this very form of attack. Goku did so, and as a fully adult Super Saiyan 4, the re-grown tail was sturdy and highly resistant to all but the most powerful of grips. But it was no match for the strength of a fully powered Kryptonian, especially one such as Prime. Goku was frozen in place, barely able to retain consciousness from the pressure on his tail.

Prime was just as surprised by the results as Goku was. He had expected the saiyan to react. He had anticipated a counter attack. Instead, his opponent went nearly limp in his grasp, not even maintaining the power to fly.

Then with a wicked smile on his face, Superman Prime flew down to the ground, dragging the barely conscious Goku with him by his tail. Prime smashed the saiyan into the island, obliterating a rocky cliff side with the force of the impact. Prime swung Goku around in a circle, tearing up the ground beneath. Then Superman Prime pulled the barely conscious super saiyan up to look at him. Goku was bleeding from his nose and mouth. With a seriously reduced ki energy field to protect him, the super saiyan was vulnerable.

"Seems I've found your Achilles tail," he mocked. "I have to admit, that blast you hit me with hurt. But only a bit. I healed fast enough, even before the explosion completely ended. And I could tell you couldn't sense where I was through all that power you released. But catching you by the tail was a real stroke of luck."

Prime punched the virtually paralyzed Goku in the face with a short jab. There was a crack as Goku's jaw broke. The Kryptonian smiled evilly. "No monkey is going to beat ME. Superman doesn't LOSE to fools like you. I always win. I survive while others die. And now it's your turn to die, monkey boy."

Superman Prime viciously ripped Goku's tail out. The saiyan let loose a short yelp, but Prime instantly had the martial artist by the thoat. He tossed the tail casually to the side. Then he slowly cocked his fist back…

CRACK!

A fist smashed into a face. But it wasn't Superman Prime's fist or Goku's face. Prime crashed backwards, bouncing repeatedly off the ground. Goku slumped to the ground in front of the man who had just saved him.

Superman stood over him, his eyes blazing with energy, surrounded by an aura of fire. The colors of his blue and red suit barely showed beneath the energy. The Man of Steel looked down at his injured friend and saw the place where the tail had been torn off.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

"I'll be fine, thanks." Goku responded. Even as he said so, his form shrunk and his hair shortened. In moments, he had returned to his normal saiyan form. "I got careless, took my eyes off of him for a moment." Goku looked up at Superman. "You be careful. I can see that you've gotten a lot more powerful than before, but you're still not strong enough for him," Goku said with a shake of his head. "I hit him with attacks that would have destroyed this world a hundred times over but he didn't go down."

From a hundred yards away, the form of Superman Prime rose up into the air, glaring at Superman and Goku.

"Yeah. He's tough," Superman admitted. "As far as I know, nothing but the power of a red sun really hurts him. Not even kryptonite. But I'm going to stop him. No matter what it takes."

"Give me a second," Goku said getting to his feet. "You'll need my help."

"No need for you to get involved in this further, Goku. This is between him and me. You rest and recover. I'll handle this."

And with that, Superman sped off into the sky.

"That's enough, Prime! We're going to end this!" he called out.

Prime laughed darkly. "It will only be the end for you. And when I'm finished, I'll come back and MAKE the people see who the real hero is!"

Goku watched the two rising into the sky until they were out of sight. Then he clenched his fists. No way was he going to lose. No way.

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><p><em><strong>Author's Note: <strong>__Thanks to Mappadouji and UNTensaZangetsu for reminding me about the senzu bean issue! I'll be addressing that at the start of the next chapter. For those of you who absolutely hate Supes Prime, don't worry, this is not the end of this. He just got in a lucky shot while Goku was distracted._

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><p><em>.<br>_


	9. Chapter 9: Technique

**Chapter 9: Technique**

Superman and Superman Prime circled each other far above the surface of the Earth. Superman's muscles bulged with the excess energy from flying into the sun, his blue and red outfit charred in spots where the Kryptonian's personal biometric field had not extended far enough to protect the suit.

Prime's eyes blazed red with fury at his opponent daring to take him on.

"You have put too many lives at risk with your carelessness, Superboy Prime. You could have been a real hero by preventing all those deaths," Superman accused his younger opponent.

"Don't try and lecture me about being a hero," Prime countered. "If you hadn't gotten in the way in the first place, I would have been the one the people would have cheered. And now you get in the way again, just when I'm about to prove myself. I will not let you keep standing in my way!"

Prime took a swing at Superman, his black suited arm moving faster than a Kryptonian from this universe could react to. Except that Superman's Kryptonian's entire metabolism was amped up by the power of the excess sun's radiation, well beyond his normal capacity. The Man of Steel managed to dodge to the side and throw a stiff jab in return. The blow struck the black clad Superman in the chest, and Prime winced as the blow struck.

"You're a disgrace to the title 'super' and Kryptonian heritage. And I will stop you," Superman said to his opponent grimly.

"How DARE you call me a disgrace! You are NOTHING next to me. I will show you and the whole universe that I am the only Superman. Do you HEAR ME?" Prime raged in response, throwing another series of punches.

Superman had to struggle to keep ahead of Prime's attacks, the black-clad villain's strikes coming at amazing speeds. He knew that despite having absorbed a great amount of solar radiation, he was still far from being as strong or as powerful as his opponent was. Despite this, the Man of Steel was able to not only fend off the more powerful Kryptonian's attacks, but even counter attack with carefully placed jabs and chops.

Superman was starting to understand how fighting the Man of Steel must have seemed to Batman, Wonder Woman, Karate Kid, and most recently, to Goku. The brawling moves of Superman Prime were crude, with terrible wastes of motion and form that failed to efficiently transfer energy into the strike. Superman found it easy to deflect Prime's more wild blows and to anticipate and dodge others. Even Prime's use of heat ray vision was predictable. Superman felt a flush of embarrassment realizing how unskilled he had once been.

He also realized how frustrating it must be fighting against himself. His immature counterpart from the Earth-Prime left himself open to dozens of hits and counter-punches. Kal-El of New Earth landed some incredible blows against his opponent, striking with far more force than he had been able to land when fighting against Goku, as Prime lacked Goku's defensive skill. Yet, none of the attacks were having much effect. Sure, Prime's head would snap to the side, leaving him open for even more blows to the ribs or waist, but the black-clad Superman seemed unfazed by the blows. Despite his massive increase in physical strength, it was not enough to bypass Prime's seemingly infinite degree of invulnerability. Despite being the more experienced and more skilled combatant, it was impossible for him to win.

* * *

><p>.<p>

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><p>Goku hovered in the air, a mile high up into the atmosphere. His eyes were locked on the combat above, catching every move between the two Kryptonians battling above him. In a few moments, he was joined by Green Lantern John Stewart and J'onn J'onzz, the Martian Manhunter. The Green Lantern noticed Goku's fists clenched by his side.<p>

"Sorry about hitting you with that construct earlier. I didn't realize you were back in your right mind," he offered. "Of course, since I've never met you when you weren't trying to blow up the city or weren't a humongous giant ape, I hope you can understand my mistake."

"Don't worry about that," Goku responded without taking his eyes off the scene above him. "I'm just sorry for all the damage I caused. I don't really have much memory from when I was in the Great Ape transformation, so if either of you were hurt then, I'm really sorry. I just wish I could help out up there."

"I feel the same way," Stewart responded, using the power of his ring to form a pair of green binoculars to help him watch events unfold. "By the way, I'm John Stewart of the Green Lantern Corps."

Goku managed to take his eyes off the battle long enough to clasp hands with the hero. "And I'm Goku, from planet Earth. Well, a different Earth. And I guess I should say I'm really from planet Vegeta. But it got blown up."

The Green Lantern had no idea what to say to that. To fill the gap, J'onn J'onzz introduced himself as well. Goku took the Martian's hand warmly.

"Thank-you, Mr. Manhunter," he said seriously. "If you hadn't managed to calm me down I probably would have destroyed the planet."

"Glad I could be of help," J'onn responded. "And call me J'onn. We alien heroes who have been orphaned from our homes need to stick together."

Goku smiled and clapped the green-skinned Martian on the back. Then he turned his gaze back up to the battle above him. Watching the fight progress, Goku's fist clenched even tighter.

"Looks like ole Clark is doing a good job," John Stewart remarked. "Prime hasn't even laid a hand on him this whole time. A bit of sunbathing and he's a 'super' Superman."

"No, it's not good," Goku said with a shake of his head. "Superman is giving Prime his best shots, but the brute isn't weakening at all. While Superman is already starting to lose the extra power he gained."

On hearing that, the Green Lantern clenched his own fists. "I wish I could go out there and help," he agreed. "Between J'onn and I, there's not much we can't handle. But this guy… he's something else. We just don't have the strength or power to handle him. We'd just get in the way and might even cause Superman to get killed trying to protect us." John Stewart looked over at Goku with a frown. "It's just too bad that you are too injured to continue the fight. You were giving Prime quite a beating before he got a hold of your… uh… tail."

"It's not about being injured," Goku said with a shake of his head. "I've fought with a lot worse injuries than this."

The two Justice League members turned to look at Goku with a bit of surprise. They had both thought he was staying out of the fight due to injury.

"I'm not able to survive in space. I guess I need to breathe or something," Goku explained.

Green Lantern and Martian Manhunter exchanged looks, and John Stewart smiled. Perhaps there was something he could do.

* * *

><p>.<p>

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><p>Superman was feeling the strain of continuing to fight at this speed and energy level. It was becoming increasingly difficult for him to keep up with his opponent and he was beginning to break out into a sweat. He was starting to miss on his counter-attacks, putting himself at risk from a strike from Prime. Despite giving it his all, Superman knew it was just a matter of time before…<p>

Prime took one of the Man of Steel's jabs without flinching and caught hold of his arm. That punch had lacked the power to even move the Kryptonian from Earth Prime, and the black-clad villain took advantage. With a left cross, Superman Prime swung at New Earth's Superman. Superman tried, to dodge, and successfully managed to minimize the damage by turning away from the punch, but the blow still struck him. Prime struck another blow, ramming his right into Superman's abdomen. It wasn't in a critical spot, but the force of the blow doubled the Man of Steel over.

"Time for you to die so that my legend can live," Prime said as he prepared to drive his fist through Superman's back.

A small flash of golden light shot up from the planet. It distracted Prime for just an instant, and Superman managed to pull away and right himself, Prime's fist missing its target. Superman was still slightly hunched over to protect his weakened body, his fists up in a protective boxing stance, completely defensive. But at least he was upright.

Then there was a second burst of golden light, this time far stronger than the first. It rose up from the earth as an intense column of energy that shot up between the two Supermen. Prime looked down to where the flash of light was coming from.

"Is that monkey trying to hit me from all the way down there?"

Superman chuckled. "No, that wasn't aimed at you, Prime," Superman explained. "That was the energy from his transformation. From the intensity of that beam, I'd say that was his second transformation."

"You mean, back as a monkey?" Prime asked incredulously.

"No, back as a super saiyan. Or, as he termed it, as a Super Saiyan 2."

"So what? Even as a 'super saiyan', or a 'Super Saiyan 2', I'll still beat him! Right after I finish beating you."

"You may be right," Superman acknowledged. "But…"

The entire planet below them began to tremble. And then there was another surge of golden light. This time, though, it wasn't just a flash, nor was it a simple column. It was as if the entire planet was glowing with the brilliance of the sun for a moment. Then the golden light faded away.

"…how will you fare against a Super Saiyan 3?" Superman concluded.

Superman Prime yelled with fury and went on an offensive that Superman had no way of blocking. Prime's blows battered Superman, and in moments, the Kryptonian in the black costume and cape had the red and blue Kryptonian by his throat. Prime cocked his hand back.

"Mind if I cut in here?" came a voice just beside them.

Goku was floating beside the pair in the middle of space. However, now his body bulged with muscles, giving him the look of a body builder. The muscle growth, however, was nothing compared to the transformation of his hair or his glowing aura. The great golden spikes flowed back from his head all the way down to his waist. Flashes of lightning-like energy constantly flashed around his body which glowed in an intense golden light. This was a Super Saiyan 3.

Prime swung his fist, hoping to finish off Superman. Before the blow could land, though, Goku grabbed him by his wrist and twisted his arm behind his back. The pain from having his arm twisted like that again caused him to release Superman's throat.

"How are you able to survive out here this long?" Superman asked after he finished chocking.

The super saiyan released Superman Prime, flinging him away far enough to respond without interruption. Then he held up his hand to reveal a green ring encircling his finger. "Courtesy of your friend. He said it would let me survive out here without needing to project a force field. It also allows me to communicate out here the way you do."

It was one of the lesser known powers of a Green Lantern ring to be able to create a duplicate ring that would exist for 24 hours. Green Lantern John Stewart had created the ring for Goku and programmed it to provide basic life support and emergency shielding powers. Not wanting the saiyan to accidentally drain its charge before the fight finished, he had disabled other uses of the ring. But it would allow him to fight out in space just fine.

"Where are the others now?" Superman asked as he waited for his regenerative powers to kick in. With all the damage he had taken combined with the after-effects of supercharging his system, it was taking some time to heal. He knew could definitely use some back up.

"They're keeping watch from a distance. They don't want to get in the way. If Prime were to target them it would make it more difficult for us. But now that you're power boost has been depleted, I think you should probably join them. Here, take this senzu bean," Goku said, flipping the small green bean to the Man of Steel.

There was just one more in his pouch. Most of the rest had fallen out of the bag during the transformation to his oozaru form, and eventually swept into the ocean. Luckily, though, the bag and the remainder of its contents had been converted into mass of the Great Ape form during the transformation, along with the shreds of his outfit. After transforming back, he was able to reconstitute the beans when he recreated his clothing. Unfortunately, he couldn't just create more magical beans, so these would have to do.

"I've only got one more, Leave this to—"

Goku barely managed to dodge a charging punch from Superman Prime. The furious black-clad villain turned after the missed strike and swung again, but Goku had already moved.

With his body twisted around from the missed punch, Superman Prime was left open to Goku's flurry of blows from directly behind. The saiyan pounded dozens of punches to exposed vertebrae along Prime's spine before snapping a spinning kick that caught the Kryptonian behind his shoulder blade. Each punch struck with perfect precision, charged with a ki force that would doom a planet. The kick struck with even greater force.

Superman Prime felt acute pain shooting through his bones followed by a cracking force behind his shoulder the sent him spinning away from his enemy. He felt agony. If it weren't from the sheer rage the pain created in him, he would have passed out.

"I will MURDER YOU!" Prime screamed when he had right himeself, unleashing his heat ray vision. He missed, as Goku had anticipated that and dematerialized.

Goku appeared directly above the Kryptonian and smashed a fierce kick to the back of his skull, which caused Prime to tumble head over heels.

"You mean, murder me… to death?" Goku taunted.

Superboy Prime charged back towards Goku to try to spear him with his rush, only to have Goku dematerialize once more and land a kick on his back, followed by a series of punches and kicks that had the Kryptonian knocked in one direction only to be intercepted and knocked in another direction. This went on for several minutes while Superman watched on in amazement as Prime was batted around like ping pong ball.

When Goku finally let up, he paused to watch the Kryptonian slowly raise his head up from a bent over position. For all the beating he had given him, Superman Prime did not have a scratch on him. Worse, the Kryptonian's energy level was rapidly rising back up to its normal capacity. The beating he had given him had lowered that level somewhat, but out here in space with the sun's energy pouring on him continuously, he was healing almost as fast as Goku could hurt him. He was going to need to hit him with even greater power.

Superman Prime was coming to a different conclusion. During that time he was being battered he had tried to counter some of Goku's moves, but unsuccesfully. He had tried to block some of the blows, or simply withstand them. But his opponent was simply too quick and was somehow anticipating anything he tried to do. At close range, he wouldn't be able to land a single blow. The only time he had come close to hitting him was when he accelerated from further away. And Prime was _hurting_. Some of the harder blows were even able to do some damage, though he was healing as fast as he was getting hurt. It wasn't quite as powerful as before he had managed to remove Goku's tail, but the _pain_ was more than he could endure.

Goku prepared himself for the next round, plans of action prepared in his mind, when Superman Prime suddenly flew directly away from him. In moments the Kryptonian was beyond his sight. At first, Goku wondered what was going on.

And then the punch came.

He had only fraction of a fraction of a second's warning. It was Superman Prime's enormous power level that allowed Goku to sense the oncoming attack. One moment, the power was becoming more and more distant, than suddenly, it was almost right on top of him. Goku dematerialized just before the blow would have hit him square in the chest.

Goku has no illusions. He could take a punch that would shatter a planet. It would hurt, but he could survive. He could take a blow that would destroy all the worlds in the solar system rolled into one, though he it would weaken him. But the punch Superman Prime had tried to hit him with was more powerful than any physical strike he had ever taken. He could feel the vibrations in space even as he rematerialized in another place. He could not afford to take a punch like that, not when Prime was giving it his all.

Unlike after his previous attempts to bull rush Goku, Superman Prime didn't turn and try to engage Goku this time. The Kryptonaian flew onwards, maintaining his velocity. Flying, he could accelerate beyond the speed of light, something he wasn't able or disciplined to do in the middle of a fight. He flew out beyond the boundaries of the solar system in under a second, then turned back to fly towards his target. The saiyan had dodged an attack from this far once, but could he dodge it again?

Goku dematerialized and rematerialized repeatedly, several times in between attacks. Every few seconds came another attempted punch, Superman Prime striking just where Goku had been before. But after the first few attacks, Goku picked up on the pattern. Now it was just a matter of getting the timing down.

Prime flew back through the solar system towards Earth once more, focusing on the spot Goku had materialized to. He poured on even more speed, arriving a fraction of a second sooner than he had in his previous attempts. He swung his fist through the spot… only to have the image disappear.

Revealing a ball of exploding energy.

Superman Prime was knocked out of his flight path by the explosion.

"You can't use the same attack on me that many times in a row before I figure it out. The least you could have done was to try and come at me from different angles each time. You should give up now. There's no reason for this to go on any further."

"Shut up! I will kill you and everyone else in this stupid universe. And then the next one and the next one until I'm the only Superman that exists and everyone realizes who I am."

Goku shook his head. "No way. There's no way I'm going to lose to you."

Goku and Superman Prime faced off out in space, now much further away from Earth than before after that series of attacks and teleportations. Goku stood in a fighting stance, a typical saiyan smirk on his face. Arcs of power flashed constantly around his body. Superman Prime stood with clenched fists.

Prime started to fly off again, preparing for another series of long distance attacks. Before he got far, however, Goku appeared ahead of him using his instant transmission. The saiyan threw a barrage of golden hued balls of energy at the Kryptonian. Superman Prime dodged out of the way, but in doing so was unable to accelerate fast enough to escape. He found himself dodging and swerving around thousands of energy balls which Goku was continuously throwing out at him.

"Go ahead! Keep that up, monkey boy, and you'll run out of energy!" Prime yelled out mockingly as he continued to dodge the ever-increasing number of golden orbs.

Goku grinned. Prime had evaded hundreds of orbs of energy which had come near him, but he didn't realize that most of them were much weaker than the rest. Prime had dodged both the strong ones and the weak ones that posed no threat to him at all. Nor had Prime realized that after he dodged an attack, the balls of energy remained out in space, forming a massive sphere of space dotted by densely packed balls of energy. Prime was well within the radius of the sphere and the pattern was just about complete. Goku hurled another ball of energy ahead of his black suited opponent to set the sequence in motion.

Prime saw the attack thrown ahead of him and stopped himself before he flew too close to it. That ball of energy exploded harmlessly nearly a mile away from him. That was when the villain noticed the thousands of other balls of gathered energy all around him. They began to explode as well, each explosion getting closer and closer to him.

Prime cursed and tried to out-fly the cascade of explosions. He never realized that these energy balls were exploding in a pattern that was leading him inwards towards the center of the sphere, where the far more powerful balls of energy had collected. When he got to the center of the pattern, the spheres of energy collapsed in on him. There was no escape.

Goku's smile widened as his trap sprung and he poured on an additional barrage of explosive energy, hurling hundreds more balls of powerful energy, each strong enough to destroy a large planet. Just as the massive sphere of combined energy balls detonated, the additional balls of energy reached their destination to add their destructive power to the explosion. What resulted was an eruption of destructive golden energy. The diameter of the explosive power was about the size of the Earth's moon.

It took some time for the energy of the explosion to dissipate out into the void of space. As the energy bled off, Goku looked intently at the center of explosion. He could barely make it out, but there was a form there. Superman Prime was floating in space, unmoving.

Goku sighed in relief. That attack had taken a lot of energy. He had been careful to use lesser energy spheres to herd Prime into the center of the trap, but even those had to be powerful enough to be convincing. Up until now, Goku hadn't done anything that would greatly sap his power. He still had a lot left, but he hoped he wouldn't need it.

The figure of Superman Prime stirred.

Goku looked on in suprise as Prime's fingers clenched into fists. Then the black caped villain turned himself upright in space. There were cuts and burns on his face and hands, but those began closing up even as Goku watched.

"You've got to be kidding me!" the saiyan said aloud.

Superman Prime's power, which had been halved at the end of that attack, was already beginning to climb back up to their normal levels once again. As long as Superman Prime was exposed to yellow sunlight, his energy would be continually replenished. He had lost consciousness momentarily during that massive explosion, a power beyond any he had experienced before, but it was not long enough to put him out of this fight.

"Is that the best you can do, monkey?" Prime snarled. "Not good enough to beat me! Do you hear me?"

And hen Prime attacked. It was a wild offensive, completely undisciplined, but Goku found himself having to deflect some of the blows rather than just dodge them. Superman Prime was pushing himself to fight at an even faster level, though without any sense of what he was doing. It was berserker frenzy. Without form or reason, but fast and furious. For several moments, Prime was on the offensive while Goku could only defend.

Goku dodged to his right, lifted his left arm at a right angle to intercept another punch, forcing the blow to go downward and askew from him. The saiyan countered with an elbow to Prime's head, dematerialized and rematerialized again on the left side and sent a series of punches towards Prime's face and neck. Prime tried to grapple him, but Goku somersaulted over his head, kicking him in the back as Goku tumbled over. Then the super saiyan whirled back into the Kryptonian just as Prime was spinning around to land a vicious kick to the stomach that sent the black-clad villain flying backwards doubled over.

Despite having beaten Prime in the exchange, Goku realized that his enemy was still recovering energy after the attacks rather than losing it. While Goku had managed to work in some well aimed shots, he hadn't been able to put as much force into most of them due to having avoid Prime's berserk strikes. If he was going to take him down, he would need to hit him dead on with even more power than before.

Goku cupped his hands to his sides and focused his gaze on his opponent. A ball of blue energy began to form.

"KA….."

The energy began to grow exponentially as Goku gathered it. The small ball of energy expanded to fill the space between his hands.

"…ME…"

Superman Prime watched as Goku gathered the ki. He didn't like the look of what was happening. That ball of energy was growing, spinning, and releasing waves of energy around it.

"…HA…"

With a growl, Prime flew the distance between himself and Goku. But before he reached his target, the super saiyan and his collected energy disappeared and reappeared much further away.

"…ME….."

Superman Prime saw in the distance as the bluish energy grew to three times the size of a man's torso. Brilliant swirls of energy flared off from the intense ball of ki. Whatever that energy, he was going to make sure it did not hit him. He tried to fly off, to get out of range of whatever this attack was. The intense green of Goku's eyes were frightening.

Goku watched as Superman Prime tried to fly off and escape. A grin spread itself over Goku's face. He was putting all his remaining power into this attack. They were far enough away from Earth that he didn't have to worry about anyone besides his opponent. All he had to do was make sure the attack hit.

Sensing Superman Prime's power, he judged the exact distance. Then he used his instant transmission technique to teleport directly in front of where Prime was about to be.

"…HAA!" Goku screamed as he released the power directly into his surprised opponent. There was no chance for Prime to dodge.

The amount of energy Goku released, his full power as a Super Saiyan 3 concentrated into one kamehameha wave, was of galactic proportions. Spread out over the entire Milky Way galaxy, the force would shake every star and every planet. Were it spread over a smaller area of the galaxy, it would have completely annihilated nearly a thousand solar systems. But this attack was focused on a much, much smaller area, concentrating on a space less than a thousand cubic meters in volume. The power rocked the dimensional boundaries of the universe in its intensity, and for a moment all of reality warped around the attack.

When the blinding flash of light from the detonation ended, there was nothing left there to see. All that was in that area was the void of space. Prime was nowhere to be seen. Goku let out a sigh. He could no longer sense the massive power of Kryptonian.

* * *

><p>.<p>

* * *

><p>Goku locked onto the next highest power level he could detect. Superman's energy was back to normal after having eaten that senzu bean. It was a few orders of magnitude lover that Prime's had been, but still massive and easy to locate. Goku transported himself over to where the Man of Steel was observing things from the moon. Goku's feet touched down on the surface of the moon to stand beside his friend in blue and red.<p>

"Wow, that was a tough fight. Sorry about having to kill the other you, but he didn't leave me any choice."

Superman shook his head sadly. "I'm sorry it came down to that as well. He was a troubled person. He never had the chance to learn to be responsible with his power the way I did." Superman lamented briefly. Then he turned to console the hero from another world, knowing that taking a life was not something he had wanted, at least when in his right mind. "I'm sure it wasn't an easy thing for you to do. Normally I don't condone killing under any conditions, but a menace like Prime… I understand there was no other choice."

Goku stood their panting, slumping to his knees. There was no air for him to breathe in the vacuum of space, but his body still tried to suck in more air on instinct. He was drained, only a fraction of his power remaining after that all out blast. Now that the battle was over, he was ready to relax.

"Well, at least the Earth is safe and—"

A pair of hands burst out from the surface of the moon from directly behind Goku. Two black clad arms wrapped themselves around the super saiyan's chest. Emerging from beneath the dead rock of Earth's natural satellite came the ragged form of Superman Prime. His suit had been ripped to shreds and half of his face was still ragged, but he still lived, beyond all expectations.

"You thought you could kill me? ME? I don't die. I survive. I ALWAYS survive!" Prime screamed insanely. "And now I'm going to squeeze you to a pulp."

Goku felt Prime's massive strength squeezing against his body. Superman Prime had clearly lost a lot of his power, though once again back in the sun's rays it was starting to build again. At the moment, Prime was only about as powerful as Superman. But in Goku's fatigued condition, the saiyan knew it would be enough to crush his body.

"Darn!" Goku called out. "I thought I destroyed you." The saiyan glanced over at Superman. "You had better get out of here, Kal-El."

Prime's grin was wide and evil. "I'm the real Kal-El, but that imitation should take your advice. Because after I kill you… he's next!"

Superman Prime squeezed.


	10. Chapter 10: The Exciting Conclusion

**Chapter 10: The Exciting Conclusion**

_Superman Prime's emotions warred within him. On the one hand, his pride and fury demanded that he end the life of that ridiculous monkey saiyan. On the other hand, he could actually feel the energy of the power Goku was gathering. It was ridiculous. Trying to land an attack had proved futile, as the saiyan would sense his power and teleport away before he landed a blow and continue gathering energy._

_Fear won out. Prime turned and flew further and further away. In less than a second, he was already beyond the range of the inner planets._

"…_HAA!" screamed Goku. The golden haired martial artist was right in front of him! And that massive, massive energy wave was… NO! He would not be killed like this!_

_Prime managed to stop his forward momentum before the beam hit him. But there was no time to accelerate away. The force of the radiant blue kamehameha wave struck him directly. The wave literally pushed him away, the concentrated force ripping and tearing at him._

_He had to fight it. Or he would die. No. He had to go with it, not fight it. It was his only chance._

_Prime screamed as he tried to move outwards with the flow of the energy. He was already within the leading edge of the wave, the force of the attack burning, burning holes in his flesh. It was literally ripping him apart as it exploded._

_And then something happened. The universe broke apart. Or at least, that small piece of the universe containing the explosion ripped. The massive energy passed around the rip, but Superman Prime slipped into it. It wasn't a deep tear, only part of him had fallen through. He could still feel the power pounding against him, but it was only part of him, the part that remained within the rift in space-time was preserved._

_And then there was only blackness._

_How long Superboy Prime floated between time and space he didn't know. Perhaps where he existed, time itself had no meaning or way of passing. Had he been completely submerged in the rip he might have lain there lost within the multiverse until some multi-dimensional being happened upon him. As it were, the rip began to close naturally, and more of Prime's ruined body returned to the natural universe._

_It was after that, time once again having meaning as more of his form entered the time stream, when he regained consciousness. It took a while for his body to regenerate. His lower body had been shredded down to the bone and his upper body was horribly burned. But the burns slowly receded and his flesh filled out. He should not have been able to remain aware during that process, but in his half in, half out of reality state, his consciousness was like a separate entity._

_When his body was finally whole, his Kryptonian powers using the sunlight striking that part of his body that was in phase with the natural world to recharge, Prime began to move. That was when he realized he was not yet quite in sync with time. He was in the past of this universe, as relative to the explosion._

_He watched events unfold as if in slow motion. The worlds turned, flying in their orbit around the stars. And then he saw them. Goku and himself, battling it out across space. He watched it all, and then he saw his chance._

* * *

><p>.<p>

* * *

><p>Prime burst out of the moon's surface where he had hidden himself, finally completely remerging with the universe and synching back with the time stream by force of will. He wrapped his arms around the super saiyan's chest. His suit was ripped to shreds and half of his face was still ragged, but he still lived, beyond all expectations. And now he would get his revenge.<p>

"You thought you could kill me? ME? I don't die. I survive. I ALWAYS survive!" Prime screamed insanely. "And now I'm going to squeeze you to a pulp."

Goku felt Prime's massive strength squeezing against his body. Superman Prime had clearly lost a lot of his power, though once again back in the sun's rays it was starting to build again. Part of why Goku had not been able to detect Prime's ki energy was that it had partially been in another universe. The other reason was that, weakened as he was, the power level was not as apparent to Goku as it had been before. At the moment, Prime was only about as powerful as Superman. But in Goku's fatigued condition, the saiyan knew Prime's strength would be enough to crush his body.

"Darn!" Goku called out. "I thought I destroyed you." The saiyan glanced over at Superman as he struggled to resist Prime's crushing strength. "You had better get out of here, Kal-El."

Prime's grin was wide and evil. "I'm the real Kal-El, but that imitation should take your advice. Because after I kill you… he's next!"

Superman Prime squeezed.

Goku let out a yell, but it was not a yell of pain. It was a yell of power. He called upon his reserves, powering up once again. New muscles formed, Goku not caring about speed at the moment. He could return to a faster form when he wasn't getting crushed by a Krytponian.

In his base form, Goku could lift thousands of tons. Even before meeting Superman and training even harder, Goku trained on the Kai Otherworld wearing multi-ton weights, in addition to his weighted clothes, under gravity that was much greater than Earth's. His super saiyan form was even more powerful, granting him fifty times his natural strength without even needing to augment it with ki energy. His Super Saiyan 2 and Super Saiyan 3 forms were also much stronger, though their increases were primarily in ki power rather than physical strength.

Yet, as strong as he was, Goku was not as physically strong as Superman. Only in his Golden Oozaru form, where most of his ki energy was converted into muscle mass, was he on par with the Man of Steel in terms of unaided strength. As a Super Saiyan 4, Goku had briefly been able to tap into that power, his physical strength rising up to rival the planet moving super hero once more. But that power was gone, and even then Superman was as far behind Superman Prime in strength as super saiyan Goku was behind Superman.

Had Prime been at full strength, there was no way Goku could have withstood the constriction of Prime's muscles. But in his weakened condition, Goku was able to bulk up enough to keep the Kryptonian from ripping him in half. But it was just a matter of time. While Goku was weakening, Superman Prime was getting stronger in the sun.

'_Superman, please listen to me. I have an idea, but I need you to get out of here. Just fly to the other side of the moon until I'm ready. Trust me,'_ Goku sent to the other hero's mind.

Superman froze at the mental contact, then nodded. In a moment, he was flying around the moon. His instincts told him to fly over and help his friend, but he trusted Goku.

"See, the coward is fleeing!" Prime crowed in triumph, his head directly behind Goku's. "How can that be Superman? He's left you to die alone."

Goku continued to power up, adding more muscle mass to his body to counter Prime's growing strength. It was painful, but he was able to resist the force of Prime's grip.

"Powering up? What do you intend to do? Blow yourself up like that fool Guardian did?" Prime sneered as he applied more pressure.

"Blow myself up? Well, I did think about that. But… that didn't really work out so good for anyone I know. Tien, Chiaotzu, Vegeta, and even the android Cell all tried that, and they just ended up dead," Goku said with gritted teeth.

Prime hmphed in disdain.

"No, I've got a technique I've been saving up for a moment like this," Goku said, managing a grin. "Ever since I learned you Kryptonians are powered by a yellow sun."

"New technique?" Prime asked, slightly puzzled. "What new technique?"

Goku bowed his head over and touched his finger tips to his temples.

"RED SOLAR FLARE!"

A blinding red light engulfed the half of the moon Goku and Prime were on. The intensity of the light was incredible. Anyone not covering their eyes when the wave of red solar energy erupted from Goku would have gone temporarily blind. And any Kryptonian in the path of the wave would have been soaked in red sun energy.

With a yell, Goku broke Prime's grip and bashed the back of his head into the Kryptonian's shocked face. Prime was sent flying back away from Goku to land sprawling on his back.

Goku struggled back to his feet, a determined look on his face. He was exhausted. That use of ki had drained him of nearly the last of his strength. He was on the verge of collapsing back to the moon's surface, but he had no intention of letting his opponent see his current weakened condition. Goku struck a combat stance, one hand leading forward, as a cocky smirk turned the corners of his mouth.

Prime struggled to get to his own feet. That burst of red solar radiation had greatly weakened him, but only for a few moments. Despite that not having been natural red sun radiation, it had an appallingly deleterious effect on his ability to process the yellow sunlight. Not as effective as the real thing, but an incredible imitation. Seeing the Super Saiyan back on his feet, Prime was afraid. He didn't dare face Goku in his current condition.

And that was when Superman flew back around from the far side of the moon. He had seen the flash of red light and realized what had happened. He didn't know how it had happened, but he knew Prime must have been weakened. Now was his chance to take him out. He flew towards the villain, his fist cocked back.

Superboy Prime managed to fly off the surface of the moon just in time to avoid being struck by the Man of Steel. Superman's fist made yet another crater on the moon's surface. Prime headed straight towards the sun. While Goku's red solar flare had disrupted his recovery and weakened him temporarily, he was still able to use his powers.

Superman turned to pursue, but Goku telepathically asked him to stop. Superman flew over to join Goku.

"I should pursue him right now. If I can get to him before he regains his power…"

"It's too risky. He's already regaining his strength. If you don't manage beat him before he recovers enough of his powers, he could seriously hurt or kill you." Superman was about to argue, willing to take that risk if it meant saving the Earth. But Goku gave him a half smile and finished his thoughts, "Besides, I have a better idea."

* * *

><p>.<p>

* * *

><p>Superman Prime felt his body knitting together. The last vestiges of the red solar energy had left and his injuries from taking that concentrated blast of energy had finally healed. He was whole again. His full power was back.<p>

It was time to go back and show them both, that poor imitation and the monkey, what true power was.

Prime sped back to the Earth's moon, a malicious grin on his face. He expected the two to be gone, but to his surprise, they were still there, standing just a few feet apart from each other on the moon's surface. There was an odd look to their stances. They were standing upright with their arms pointed across their chests in opposite directions.

"Now!" Goku called out.

Simultaneously, the pair called out "Fyuuu…." while sidestepping towards each other in precisely measured steps, bringing their arms up and around in a perfect arc towards one another until they were pointing right at each other with both arms perfectly perpendicular to their bodies. Then in a flash, they pointed their arms in the opposite direction, adding another syllable to their odd chant, "…sion!"

Prime found the sight so ridiculous he almost broke down laughing.

But the pair finished their move, arching their arms and bodies back towards each other, perfectly spaced out so that their top fingers and bottom fingers made a perfect arch between the two. They completed their fusion dance ritual with a yell of "HAAA!"

And then came the flash of blinding white and golden light followed by a massive explosion of power that engulfed the surface of the moon. When the light faded, a single distinct form stood there with an extremely cocky grin on its face. The fusion had been a success.

This new entity had hair the color of molten gold that stuck up from the head in two different directions down a neat part. His body was muscled but more toned than Goku's Super Saiyan 3 form. He wore a karate gi identical to Goku's, but instead of being primarily orange with a blue tunic beneath, it was the exact shade of Superman's blue, with matching red undershirt, boots, and wristbands. A long, flowing red cape trailed behind him. On the fused being's left shoulder was the familiar 'S' shield. Last of all, intelligent piercing blue eyes veritably glowed from within saiyan-like slanted sockets.

Superboy Prime could only stare. After a few moments, he managed to stammer out, "What—what are you?"

The voice that answered was a stereo combination, half of it was teasingly playful, the other half deadly serious. "I'm a Saiyatonian. I'm neither of the two you were fighting, but at the same time, I'm both of them. Only better. You can call me…" the fused being paused momentarily, "Kalkar-El."

* * *

><p>.<p>

* * *

><p>Beings of power across the universe stopped whatever they were doing to observe what had just happened. The remaining Lords of Chaos and Lords of Order looked on what had occurred and called out their objections across the cosmos, fearing this new power would forever tip the scales of power to the other side. The Spectre, the Spirit of Vengeance, and long time protector of goodness in the universe, looked on with concern.<p>

The Presence heard the various calls and cries of the great players in this universe. _'This cannot be!'_ came the cry from cosmic beings throughout all the realities. The Presence sighed. It could not allow the greater powers to attempt to intervene. In answer, a message was imprinted on the minds of every concerned being of power:

_This shall stand. For now. Do nothing, and all will be right._

The cosmos went silent. It was a rare thing for The Presence to take any action at all.

* * *

><p>.<p>

* * *

><p>"I see," Superman Prime said, his eyes blazing red. "Then I'll just kill both of you at once. Even both of you added together are no match for me!"<p>

Prime swung his fist, expecting his opponent to dodge. He was shocked, though, to find that the saiyatonian had easily caught his fist with one hand. Superman Prime was tossed unceremoniously to the moon's surface.

"If our powers were just added together, this would be an interesting fight. Goku's power with the strength, durability, and regenerative powers of a Kryptonian would be incredible. Superman with perfected martial arts skill, the use of instant transmission, and all of Goku's techniques would be quite a match against you. But you're not facing either of them."

Prime tried to bull rush this new opponent, but Kalkar-El was too fast. The saiyatonian was in front of Prime in an instant, grabbing the villain by his shoulders and ramming a kneed into his stomach.

"You're fighting me," Kalkar-El concluded.

Superman Prime spat blood.

He couldn't believe it. They were faster than him. Stronger than him.

Prime was powerful enough to carry hundreds of planets at once if he wished to. That was thousands, hundreds of thousands of times stronger than the Man of Steel. Prime could withstand the force of multiple black holes. He could handle blasts that would turn an entire solar system to ash. But one blow from the fused being had him coughing up blood.

Kalkar-El stood smugly, his arms folded in front of him. The Kryptonian from the Prime universe didn't understand. Fusion didn't add their powers together. It multiplied them. In truth, it was a geometric improvement. Increasing the size of a being's ki by just a small fraction would double that being's power. Actually doubling the size of one's ki… that would result in exponential increases in power.

The fusion of Goku and Superman did not just add their strength together. It wasn't adding a trillion to a quintillion. It was multiplying trillions and quintillions together. The resulting physical strength was enough to ball up all the matter in the galaxy, if not the universe, and throw it across all of space. And that was without any of the other powers.

"No! I won't let it end like this!" Prime yelled. He got to his feet and flew directly towards the Earth, firing his heat ray vision towards the planet as he charged. "I will destroy this world and you won't be Superman any more! Then I will be the one. The only one!" In his insanity, Prime was confusing the idea of Superman failing to save the Earth with his own success in destroying the Man of Steel.

His beams of heat struck a forcefield that extended over the entire planet. And then Prime felt himself being flung back through the void of space by an unseen force. He turned to face Kalkar-El, unleashing his heat ray vision at him as well. The heat beams struck the fused warrior's outstretched hand with no effect.

"Yes, Superboy Prime. It ends like this. I cannot allow you to continue your rampage."

And then the tears came out. Tears of fear and shame. And he begged.

"No! Please, no! Don't kill me. Don't kill me!"

The saiyatonian gave the villain a half frown. "You deserve to die, Prime. A hundred times over, you should die for what you've done. I won't forgive you."

Superboy Prime whimpered. He struggled against the force of the telekinesis, but to no avail. The combination of Goku's power with Superman's trained and ordered Kryptonian intellect was too much to overcome.

"But I won't kill you. That's not the kind of person I am," came the twin voices.

Superboy Prime stopped struggling, but the tears were still coming.

And then the fusion of Goku and Superman raised a hand. A golden glowing aura began to surround Prime, and the Kryptonian began to scream. "What are you doing to me? This hurts! This hurts!"

"Do you remember, Prime, when we were in Lex Luthor's bank vault? I know you were watching. Goku had the kryptonite and was using ki to destroy it? It changed through the colors of the spectrum before it became black and then disintegrated. Green. Red. Blue. Purple. Even gold."

The golden energy swirled around Prime, latching on to him, pouring into his veins. The black-clad villain screamed even louder.

"It's amazing what a Kryptonian mind and a saiyan body can do with ki. We can even reproduce the effects of something we glimpsed for less than a second. Gold Kryptonite, Superboy Prime. The effects are permanent." Kalkar-El looked Prime in the eyes. "You will never use your powers to hurt anyone again."

And then Prime began to choke. Without his powers, he could not survive in space for any amount of time.

The saiyatonian instantly transported the three of them back to within the Earth's atmosphere. He appeared between a surprised Martian Manhunter, Green Lantern John Stewart, and the Flash. He set the depowered Superboy Prime down between them.

"What the—"

"Who the—"

"How the—"

The three began, but the fused being forestalled them. "Look after him. I've stripped him of his powers. Now I've got some things to take care of around the universe while I still have time."

Then he was gone, leaving the three Justice Leaguers with a crying, muttering mess of a former super-villain.

* * *

><p>.<p>

* * *

><p>Lex Luthor sat behind his desk, down deep in a bunker designed to keep anyone and everyone out. Especially Superman. There were fifty seven layers of security, several of which were attuned specifically to the Man of Steel's particular vulnerabilities. The final room in which Luthor sat, while being finely appointed and quite comfortable, incorporated many of those security measures—particularly those that would not kill him as well.<p>

There was a dull crash. Then Lex Luthor watched as the twenty feet thick security wall in front of him was ripped away and tossed aside. Lex looked at his monitor as several of the security alarms were set off by the wall crashing through previous layers of defense. Lex sighed, guessing his counter-measures designed to prevent someone from simply speeding through his sensors had failed.

The bald billionaire villain looked up expecting to see his arch-nemesis walking through the smoke and debris. What he saw instead greatly surprised him. And annoyed him. His lifelong enemy and the one he had sent to kill said enemy hand joined together. Literally.

"Ah, Lex Luthor. Last one on my to-do list. We meet again, for the first time."

Even their voices were mixed together.

"My, my, what have you two gone and done to yourselves now?" Luthor asked in bored tones.

"Hehe, nothing permanent. Don't worry, you'll have Superman back to keep you in line soon enough."

"But will I" Luthor mused, "if you die right now?" He pushed a button.

The room was flooded with red light, artificial red sun radiation. Simultaneously, there were several openings in the floor out of which clumps of green kryptonite rose in patches across the entire area. And then the shooting began. Thousands of rounds of kryptonite tipped bullets were fired throughout the room.

Kalkar-El felt several of the projectiles striking him. And bouncing off. After a few seconds, he began picking the bullets out of the air with his hands and dropping them around by his feet. When the firing finally stopped, the saiyatonian looked at Lex with a smirk on his face.

"Ow," he said simply.

Then he released his ki in a carefully controlled sphere of destruction. Everything within the room, aside from Lex Luthor and his desk, were instantly consumed. Not a molecule remained.

Stunned momentarily, Lex hastily opened a drawer in his desk to remove his trump card, but the saiyatonian dematerialized over, snatched it away, then dematerialized back. It was a silver glove with black and red arcane symbols etched into its surface.

"Magic metal glove of some kind. I guess it does bad things to people," the fused hero said as he crushed it in his hands and then turned it into dust with his heat ray vision. Lex watched with his jaw hanging open. "I'm guessing that was supposed to be some impossible to destroy artifact? Where I'm concerned," he said pointing to himself, "there's no such thing as impossible."

Then there was an abrupt flash of light, and the next thing anyone knew, Goku and Superman were standing side by side together in the room. The fusion time had expired.

"That was fun!" Goku said turning towards the Man of Steel.

Kal-El smiled at the saiyan warmly. "I can't disagree. That was something incredible. It only lasted a short time but we managed to do a lot of good. It was too bad we couldn't figure out how to make the fusion dance work back on New Namek."

"Unfortunately, our body masses don't normally match. I only learned to control my mass better when I became a Super Saiyan 4 and that why we could finally make the fusion work," Goku said with a smile. "But glad I was able to help out around here. I know it doesn't bring back those I killed while I was… you know… but I hope it makes a difference."

"You're still in my office?" Luthor said to the two wearily. He affected that tone hoping it would drive them away.

"You're not to blame for what happened there, Goku. Lex is. And it is time to make him pay for all the suffering he caused in his quest for vengeance."

A new voice joined in reply. "You're right. It is time for Lex to pay."

Goku and Superman spun to see a powerful form walking through Lex's ruined bunker. The white suited man in a large green cape paused to examine the destruction. "Love what you've done with the place."

Superman's eyes narrowed. "Neron. I see that you're the one truly responsible for the events that transpired here."

"Yes, isn't it grand? All that death and destruction. And all because of you," Neron said pointing towards Goku. The saiyan flinched from the accusation. Goku had no fear of the demon, but he abhorred what he had done while acting under the influence of the black kryptonite.

Superman took a step towards the demon. "I see you chose to reveal yourself after the fusion had worn off. You know if you had appeared any earlier I would have wiped your foul presence from existence."

The demon snorted. "No doubt. Timing is everything, as they say. But I'm not here for you this time, Superman." The muscular demon strode towards Lex Luthor with ill intent. "I'm here to collect from him. He failed his contract to end Superman using Goku has his agent and now owes me his soul. The bill falls due… now." Neron turned a moment to smile darkly at the Man of Steel. "And there's nothing you can do to stop me."

Superman smiled back at the demon. "I don't need to stop you, Neron."

The demon paused in his tracks, curious. Did Superman really not care that he took the man's soul?

"You just said Luthor's contract was to 'end' Superman? It seems he has fulfilled his obligations. You have no claim on him," Superman said smugly.

"What's this?" the demon snarled. "You are standing right in front of me. If Luthor had succeeded, you wouldn't be here. His soul is mine."

"Oh, I get it!" Goku said excitedly. "When we fused together, you and I ceased to exist. We were a completely different person when we joined into one."

Neron clenched his fists. "No! That was not…"

"It was your deal, demon," the Kryptonian chided. "Whether you like it or not, Goku caused me to cease to exist. You never said I had to stay that way, I'll bet. Your conditions were met and your contract is complete."

Neron roared in fury, an aura of power enveloping him. "I will slay you right here and—"

Before he could finish his threat, the demon's flesh and clothing turned gray and he froze in place. He had turned into solid stone.

"Neron, Neron," came another deep voice, "always scheming to cheat people of their souls. When will you learn?" A figure stepped out of the shadows. He was a tall, red skinned demon with large, sharply pointed ears sticking up on either side of his light red skull and twin horns protruding from to top of his head. The demon had a small amount of black hair on the top of his head and a short goatee on his chin. He was clothed in a vibrant blue outfit that covered his body, held in the middle by a golden belt with a large disc at its center. A long white cape flowed behind him and hung bunched in a circle from his shoulders. Oddly, a ring of colorful flowers encircled his head as well.

The stone visage slowly faded away from Neron's form, returning to natural flesh. Neron transmuted himself back to his "normal" form. The demon slowly turned to regard the strange new demonic interloper. "Dabura! You disgrace of a demon! I should—"

In an instant, Dabura had Neron held by the throat. "I've given up evil, Neron, not violence. Crushing you would not be considered an evil act by anyone."

The muscular Neron glared once around the room before vanishing in a gout of flame. Dabura might have gone soft on mortals, but he had not become the Demon King of his own realm of hell because he was powerless. Collecting this contract was a lost cause and not worth the risk.

"Dabura?" Goku said thoughtfully.

"Who is this," Superman asked, still on guard.

Lex Luthor regarded the new intruder with a dark expression. "I've had enough of all of you trespassers." Luthor looked at Superman coldly. "I would say thank you for 'saving my soul', but as there is no such thing, I'm going to ask you all to leave."

Dabura turned to regard Lex Luthor equally coldly. "Silence, foolish mortal." The demon walked over to the billionaire, grabbed Lex with one arm, and traced a symbol on his forehead that blazed with fire. "You will make right the wrong you have done here. That is the price you pay for your sin." The symbol burned in Lex Luthor's eyes and then the billionaire nodded mindlessly.

"Oh, I remember now. You were in heaven and helped Bulma and Chi-chi look for Gohan!"

"What?" Superman asked Goku, looking surprised. "A demon in heaven?"

"Actually, if I remember right from the Supreme Kai, Dabura there is the Demon _King_. But he wasn't really all that bad." Goku turned towards the large demon. "You tried to fight Majiin Buu and lost, right?"

Dabura nodded. "That's right. I was there under the control of the wizard who was attempting to resurrect that monster. But once Babidi's spell on me was broken, I was finally free. I had come to love the beauty of the world and decided to reject all evil."

"Demons can do that?" Superman asked in surprise and suspicion.

Dabura shook his head. "Demons and devils are different where Goku and I are from, Superman. We aren't souls that are being punished for evil deeds. We are beings who are chosen to maintain the order of the Underworld. Our jobs sometimes entail evil deeds, but we aren't necessarily evil by nature. Your universe, however, is another matter. Perhaps it is possible for demons here to change their ways, but I would not expect so."

"So, Dabura, why have you come?" Goku asked.

"I was sent by King Kai," the demon said. "He wanted me to bring you something."

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><p>.<p>

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><p>The Demon King Dabura, Goku, Superman, Green Lantern, the Flash, and the Martian Manhunter stood together in a circle within a small grassy area of Metropolis Park. Kal-El of Earth Prime was now being housed in a room at Arkham Asylum, courtesy of a phone call from Batman to the Commissioner and a psychiatric evaluation the results of which were never in doubt. Once that had been arranged, the remaining heroes had rushed back to Metropolis as soon as they had word that Superman had been sighted.<p>

"So, you're telling me that the two of you were fused into one being?" Wally West was asking after hearing the explanation. "What was that like?"

Goku and Superman looked at each other for a moment, and then answered in perfect synchronization, "Super."

"And the two of you put together wiped the floor with Super-annoying Prime," John Stewart nodded approvingly. "Sounds like quite a handy technique. I also heard reports that the two of you cleaned up quite a few messes, including the one that had most of the Green Lantern Corps tied up."

Goku and Superman simply smiled in response.

"So, now what?" the Flash asked, looking at the demon and the seven strange golden balls on the ground. "We all play catch or something?"

"Now," Goku said excitedly, "we wish everyone who was killed as a result of my being brought to this universe back to life!"

"How about we wish that all the damage that was done as a result of you being brought here is undone?" Green Lantern suggested.

Superman shook his head. "No need. Lex Luthor will be paying the bill for all the damage that was done. With interest."

Dabura nodded with a smile. "Three times the actual cost, to be exact." The demon king looked over at Goku with a smile. "Are you ready?"

"Yeah, just a moment," Goku said. He walked over and clasped Superman's hand. "It was a real pleasure. Even the part fighting you was fun, even though I wish I had been in my right mind at the time. But the fusion was awesome. I really learned a lot."

Superman smiled, "Same here. I can't wait to get Bruce into one of those red sun radiation training sessions he likes to put me through. I'm going to have quite a surprise for him." The Man of Steel held out his hand, concentrating until a small ball of energy formed there.

Goku smiled broadly. He had a lot of new techniques he wanted to try as well. He didn't remember everything he had known as Kalkar-El, but what he did remember was exciting.

The folks back home were in for a surprise.

_***The End***_

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><p><em><strong>Author's Note:<strong> This is the final chapter of the story. I will be adding an "alternate ending chapter" and additional notes sometime later. I appreciate all reviews and comments._

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><p>.<p> 


	11. Aftermath: Clark and Bruce

**Aftermath: Clark and Bruce**

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><p>Bruce Wayne stepped into the headquarters of the Justice League in his persona of Batman. That meant he was armored in a multimillion dollar, specially designed all-black body suit, equipped with a utility belt and gadgets that ranged from batarangs to sonic jammers that were powerful enough to stop a bullet. Bruce smirked to himself as several visiting 'super' heroes stepped out of his way. They wouldn't see the twitch of his mouth beneath the black cowl covering his face.<p>

Not that they were wrong to move out of his way. Despite many of them being many times his "only human" strength, he had ways to deal with just about any of them. Not that they couldn't defeat him if things didn't work out according to his plan, but his aura of invincibility, almost as if he were the main character in his own story, deterred many from even thinking about trying. The thugs on the streets of Gotham scattered and fled at the mere mention of his approach. The legend of Batman did 90% of his work for him and even won him a fair number of fights against over-awed adversaries.

Bruce walked up to the lift that would take him up to the special training facility reserved for full members. Today he was going to deliver another martial arts lesson to arguably Earth's most powerful super hero. Despite himself, Bruce enjoyed this role. He knew it wasn't right to enjoy beating on a guy who could crush an asteroid, move the moon, and move at nearly the speed of light. Especially a really nice guy. But he had to admit it was fun taking down a man who could rip through steel walls with his bare hands.

"Hello, Clark," he greeted as he stepped into the artificially red lit room.

The tall muscular man in front of him gave him an uncustomary grin. Usually Clark was serious when training here. Clark Kent stretched himself out and gave a respectful bow. The man was a gutsy hero, but at times too powerful for his own good. He needed sessions like this. Not only to help him develop better fighting skills, but to also to keep him grounded and humble. The last thing the world needed was a super-powered egomaniac. Or rather, _another_ super-powered egomaniac.

"Good to see you, Bruce. Thanks for agreeing to come for this sparring session."

"Sure thing, Clark. Glad you got over your pride about our last encounter." Bruce still remembered the look of pain and frustration on Clark's face from when he had to submit to him. It was galling and humiliating to have to give up, and the hero left the training room in a huff. That had been nearly a year ago since they had last trained.

Bruce noted Clark's martial arts outfit with a little surprise. He was dressed in a Japanese karate gi, but it was different than the one he had lent the Kryptonian. This gi was blue an red, the same colors of his Superman costume. The belt at his waist was black.

"Black belt, Clark? I thought I told you about pretending to hold a rank higher than you had been awarded."

"Yeah, I remember. You said something about showing me what a real master was."

Bruce Wayne's eyes narrowed dangerously behind his mask. Clark Kent was deliberately trying to goad him? Well, it was working. He moved to remove his armor, but Clark held up a hand.

"Leave it on, Bruce, if you don't mind. I want to see how I'd really fare against Batman."

Bruce Wayne knew that he should insist on removing his armor. He knew that in a red sun chamber like the one they were currently in that the Batman body armor would give him far too much of an advantage against Clark. True, Clark had come a long way from the undisciplined brawler he had once been, but the difference in skill level between the Kryptonian and himself was still just too great even without the suit.

On the other hand, Bruce knew that under yellow sunlight that Superman was much too powerful for either Bruce Wayne or a fully armored Batman. Bruce shrugged his shoulders. "Your funeral," he remarked darkly in the voice of the masked vigilante.

Bruce Wayne extended his hand outward in an open stance that a master would take with a student, inviting an attack. To his surprise, Clark didn't drop into the guard position he had been teaching him, or into the Kryptonian martial arts ready stance that Superman had learned. Instead, Clark Kent dropped into a half crouching stance with one arm leading high and forward, the hand twisting around with the fingers extended. His lower arm was held close to his chin.

Bruce smirked. Still an amateur.

He waited. It was on Clark to attack.

When his friend did move in to attack after delaying a second, Bruce Wayne was taken by surprise. Clark charged at him with carefully measure steps and then at the last second dodged to one side to throw a jab. Bruce was forced to adjust to the attack, moving his guard arm down to intercept, but Clark was already reversing direction and punching back the other way before their hands connected.

It was a genuinely good move. Bruce Wayne had to take a step back or risk actually getting hit by the-

Shocked, Bruce broke off his train of thoughts. Clark Kent's punches were coming too fast and too unpredictably for him to not take this seriously. This was a completely different style from what Clark had used before. In fact, it was a fighting style that Batman had never even encountered in all his battles or training. And it was very effective.

Bruce blocked a series of punches and spinning kicks that flowed against him, retreating back several more steps to avoid being put in a difficult position. Considering that he had never had to retreat from Clark before, not even a single step, that was amazing. The last time they had sparred, Bruce had just stood in one place blocking and counter-attacking until finally the de-powered Kryptonian overbalanced. In the end, Bruce had put him in a hold that forced Clark to surrender.

Bruce retaliated with a short series of punches and a kick of his own, but he was surprised again to find Clark guiding his punches away with gripping deflections similar to some variants of kung fu. Neither the mixed style Bruce was training the man nor the Kryptonian style incorporated blocks like that. Where had he learned this?

Just before Clark landed his first real kick against him in a serious spar, Bruce nimbly back-flipped away and landed in a crouch. Batman looked up at the surprising alien. Batman's eyes narrowed.

"You've really improved a lot, Clark. Where did you learn all of this? And how did you master it so quickly?"

"Honestly, Bruce, you're really a great teacher," Clark said a little apologetically, standing up and relaxing his guard. "I didn't go looking for a teacher to replace you. But I—"

Batman launched himself towards the Kryptonian. Clark was forced to back away, and was completely on the defensive as Batman's strikes came much faster. The Dark Knight crouched low and slowly rose up as he backed Superman's alter ego up, finishing by sweeping Clark's arms away and smashing his face with a wicked crossing right, then kicking the off-balance man in the chest.

Clark Kent flew backwards from the force of the kick but managed to right himself in the air into a handstand, flip over and land in a defensive crouch. Clark waited, but Batman did not continue to engage. After a second, Clark stood back up.

Batman regarded the man standing across from him with appraising eyes. The Gothamite hero was more than just impressed. Not only had Clark defended admirably against a surprise attack, he had managed to recover midair and acrobatically soften his landing. But that last exchange should have answered the question of whether or not Clark Kent was ready to tackle Batman.

"You've obviously improved, Clark, but we both know you are aren't strong enough or fast enough to beat me. Not without your powers. We should get back to working on your technique."

Clark smirked.

"You're right. I can't beat you like this. I haven't really developed the muscle memory to let me keep up with you. Unless..." Clark trailed off.

Gotham's Dark Knight watched in surprise as Clark Kent pulled off a pair of wristbands and threw them to the floor. Then a pair of anklets, followed by his shirt. Batman watched as each item of clothing fell to the floor as if they were made of lead. After a second, the detective realized that they actually were made of lead or something just as heavy.

"That feels much better," the Kryptonian said with a crafty smile.

The next moment, Batman realized that Clark Kent was moving faster than was humanly possible and charging straight at him. He tried to dodge and block, but Clark was faster, hitting him with a complex combination that had the hero from Gotham seeing lights explode in his vision and then he was flying backwards from a kick to his chest. It was a good thing he was wearing his suit or that would have really hurt.

As it was, he had to perform an aerial back flip. Batman fired off one of his bat-lines which stuck into the wall, allowing him to turn his momentum and swing away from his opponent. He landed on the wall and launched himself back at Clark with a shove from his legs. But his opponent had leapt backwards, impossibly far.

"What's going on here, Clark," the Bat growled. "How are you doing this? This room is filled with red solar radiation and you were in here more than long enough to have lost your powers."

Clark crouched back down in the guard position he had used earlier. "I'm not using any Kryptonian powers, Bruce. In fact, I've had to stay in this chamber for a week straight to make any improvement. If I stepped out early, my natural healing would have healed my muscles without making them any stronger."

It was absurd. Utterly absurd. How had Clark Kent become stronger and faster than him without the power of yellow sunlight? Worse, Bruce had to admit that Clark was fighting at a level that deserved a black belt. This had to be some kind of trick.

Batman surged forward, throwing a trio of batarangs as he approached his opponent. To the Dark Knight's surprise they were simply knocked out of the air and then Clark was on him throwing back spinning punches and leaping over his head to attack with a spinning kick. Batman was forced to roll forward to avoid the blow. He came out of the roll standing, and turned just in time to see the Clark had hit the floor and shot towards him at a rate that continued to surprise him.

He would have to treat this as if he were in a real battle. As if he were up against someone like Deathstroke- a skilled opponent with enhanced strength and speed. He'd have to cheat.

Batman detonated one of his smoke bombs and disappeared into the darkness. Bruce preferred the role of the noble samurai over the shadowy ninja, but there were times that the strategies of the _shinobi_ were more suited to a particular battle. Batman was a master of both, using surprise and shadows to help instill fear in Gotham's underworld as well as giving them public beat-downs in a fair fight. In the shadows, you had to use more than just your eyes. Bruce listened for the slip that would give his opponent away. There, the sound of feet moving on the floor.

The Batman launched his attack, moving silently through the smoke. But just before he struck, Clark suddenly turned and somersaulted away from him. How had he known?

"Tricky, Bruce. I barely sensed you at the last moment," Clark said with a serious look on his face. "And I have to admit, it's not like I'm exactly facing you at your best."

Batman walked out of the obscuring smoke, a dark specter of fear. Most opponents would quake at the sight. He didn't expect to have that affect on the man who was Superman, but there was always that slight psychological edge to the darkness and bat motif that was his calling card. "What do you mean, Clark. I stopped holding back against you after you dropped your weights."

Clark nodded. "Good. I'm glad I wasn't just kidding myself that you were taking this seriously. But while you're one of the best martial artists of our age, perhaps the best even," Clark acknowledged, "it's your tactical genius that is your most fearsome skill. You know how to plan to take down and opponent even a stronger than you. Given time and information, you can handle just about anyone."

Bruce remained expressionless behind his mask. He was still trying to size up Clark's new skills and speed. Still, he felt a warm feeling in his heart from the praise. Coming from the Man of Steel, under any kind of light, that was something of note.

"But I've got one more surprise for you, Bruce. I think you're really going to like this one. That is, after you manage to get back up off the ground."

Batman wasn't about to let Clark Kent defeat him in battle. Carefully approaching the Kryptonian, Bruce prepared to attack, determined to defeat the other Justice League member. Batman began with a bit of misdirection, charging sideways and then suddenly reversing direction. The Dark Knight then threw a pair of batarangs, not trying to actually hit his opponent, but to simply knock him off balance. It worked, and Batman charged in with a series of punches and kicks that had Clark backpedaling. Then his opponent somersaulted backwards, giving Batman the opening he was looking for.

Gotham's caped crusader followed the retreating Kryptonian launching himself into a flying kick that should put Clark down for the count. But just as his foot was about to make contact with Clark's chest, the Kryptonian whipped his arms from around his side and...

A ball of blue energy flashed from Clark Kent's hands hands.

The force of the energy struck Batman with the force of a car hitting a pedestrian. His body jerked back and flew on an arc backwards almost exactly opposite of the trajectory of his kick. But unlike the flawless execution of his attack, the return trip was anything but graceful. The figure of the Batman went sprawling down unceremoniously to the ground. The Bat skidded and tumbled over to lie still in the ground.

"Bruce?" he heard the concern in the voice. "Bruce?"

Bruce Wayne rolled over with groan and took the hand that was offered him. Clark helped pull him slowly back to his feet. Batman removed his hood and shook his head to get the "cobwebs" out.

"What the hell was that, Clark?"

"It was a _ki_ attack. Life energy from my body collected to one point and then discharged," Clark Kent explained.

Bruce was amazed. He had studied under some of the world's greatest masters. He knew as much about the secrets of the spirit energy known as chakra or ki as anyone. "How did you do it, Clark? Something like that is impossibly advanced. Few masters in the history of the world have developed that level of ability. And to do it in a year?"

Clark Kent shook his head. "I'm afraid you're going to be disappointed, Bruce. I didn't learn this the way you did... through hard work."

"Then, how?"

"Remember that incident about six months ago?" Clark saw Batman give him a look as if to say "which incident" so he added, "Where there was a King Kong-like attack in Philadelphia and Superman Prime showed up?"

Batman nodded. He had been on the other side of the world and so hadn't been involved in handling the problem, but he had been briefed on the basics of the what had happened. Superman filled him in on the rest, including the results of the fusion.

"So, after we separated again, I retained some of the knowledge we had shared as a joined entity. The biggest, of course, was that I understood a lot more about martial arts and _ki_," he explained. "But I had to train my body as well. I've been working hard for the past six months to teach my body all the things that are in my head."

Batman shook his head in disbelief. "Well, I do have to give you credit for putting in the hard work," he said at length. "But how does prolonged exposure to red sunlight radiation affect your Kryptonian powers?"

"According to Star Labs, it's really not that bad. My capacity to store energy isn't diminished after a training session. If anything, it's actually a good thing," Clark reassured his friend and heroic colleague. "As long as I absorb enough sunlight to reach full capacity after each session, there won't be a problem."

Clark paused by the door exiting the traing chamber. He tapped a button and the red sunlight radiation switched off and the room was bathed in yellow light. It felt soothing to the Kryptonian. Then, he hit another control and the door slid open.

"I've got another surprise for you , Bruce."

"This one won't knock me across a room, will it?" Batman replied, his mask back on.

Clark chuckled. "Nothing like that." Then he pulled a set of black clothing out from behind a small shelf and tossed it to Batman. The black costumed hero caught it with one hand, but quickly had to bring his other arm over to keep from dropping it.

"Weighted clothing?"

"Exactly. And with the meditation and _ki_ control exercises I can teach you, you can push beyond your normal human limits."

Bruce turned to regard his friend in surprise. He had come to teach and had been taught. He had wanted to humble the Kryptonian, but instead found himself humbled.

"Thank you, Clark. This is..."

"No, don't thank me. You should thank Goku."

"Goku?"

"The one I fused with." Clark looked up, though he knew "up" wasn't really the place to look and thought, "_thanks, Goku. Wherever you are_."

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><p><em><strong>Author's Note: <strong>Thanks to Mappadouji for catching a serious mistake that I had missed when editing!_

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><p>.<p> 


	12. Alternate Ending 1: Vegito

**Alternate Ending 1: Vegito**

Prime burst out of the moon's surface where he had hidden himself, finally completely remerging with the universe and synching back with the time stream by force of will. He wrapped his arms around the super saiyan's chest. His suit was ripped to shreds and half of his face was still ragged, but he still lived, beyond all expectations. And now he would get his revenge.

"You thought you could kill me? ME? I don't die. I survive. I ALWAYS survive!" Prime screamed insanely. "And now I'm going to squeeze you to a pulp."

Goku felt Prime's massive strength squeezing against his body. Superman Prime had clearly lost a lot of his power, though once again back in the sun's rays it was starting to build again. Part of why Goku had not been able to detect Prime's ki energy was that it had partially been in another universe. The other reason was that, weakened as he was, the power level was not as apparent to Goku as it had been before. At the moment, Prime was only about as powerful as Superman. But in Goku's fatigued condition, the saiyan knew Prime's strength would be enough to crush his body.

"Darn!" Goku called out. "I thought I destroyed you." The saiyan glanced over at Superman as he struggled to resist Prime's crushing strength. "You had better get out of here, Kal-El."

Prime's grin was wide and evil. "I'm the real Kal-El, but that imitation should take your advice. Because after I kill you… he's next!"

Superman Prime squeezed.

**BLAM!**

A blast to the back of Prime's head caused him to open his arms up wide, allowing Goku to dematerialize and reappear away from the crushing grip of the Kryptonian. Goku turned around to see who his benefactor was when he heard the callous sneer of a very familiar presence.

"Nobody kills Kakkarot but me."

Vegeta stood floating in the air, his arms crossed in front of him with his typical proud, arrogant smirk on his face. "So, this is the powerful Kal-El that impressed Kakkarot so much. Now let's see how you deal with a REAL super saiyan!"

Vegeta blitzed Superman Prime with a burst of speed, landing hundreds and thousands of blows on the startled Kryptonian before he could register the attack. Vegeta had worked himself constantly to train to catch up to Goku, his long time rival. They were friends of a sort, even family in some ways, but Vegeta never lost sight of Goku being the one person he must defeat, he must surpass. This for him, was an opportunity.

And he was doing it. He had reached the level of Super Saiyan 3, his sharp golden hair stretching down all the way all his back, his aura of power flashing and crackling with unrestrained power. His opponent was being smashed before him. The guy could take a pounding, that was the one thing going for him, but Vegeta continued to pour on the beating, moving around the defenseless enemy smashing him with a fist to the face, an axe-kick to the back, a chop to the throat. The fool Kryptonian couldn't even manage to block a single attack! And his rival, who moments before had been held helpless by this weakling, was left there to do nothing but cheer him on.

With a final planet-shattering fist to Superman Prime's back, Vegeta sent the Kryptonian plummeting to the moon. A brand new crater the size of a city appeared on the Earth's natural satellite where Prime hit the surface. Vegeta stood there in space, his chest heaving. "And that's why **I****'****m** the Prince of all Saiyans!"

"Vegeta! Finish him! Don't give him time to recover!" Goku warned.

Odd that Kakkarot would advocate finishing an opponent off. Vegeta looked at his rival with a gloating expression. "What? All out of mercy, Kakkarot? And I thought you would be the first to want to give someone a sporting chance. I guess losing like you just did to that overgrown fool must have hurt your pride," Vegeta laughed. "About time. But I can do this all day!"

"Not that I don't mind the help, Vegeta," Goku mused. "But how did you get here and how are you… you know, breathing in space."

Vegeta smirked. "Oh, did you forget already? When I ascended to the level of super saiyan I was training out in an asteroid field without any kind of protective suit. Elite saiyans learn to regulate their breathing on such a level that we can go extended periods in the vacuum of space without air or needing any kind of protection. But of course, a low-class saiyan like yourself wouldn't understand that, now would you."

"Well, it's great that you're here, and thanks for your help, but why again did you come?"

"If you must know, I was sent here by King Kai to bring the Dragonballs to this universe so that you can wish back all the people you killed while you were being a weak-minded idiot. Now that I've taken care of that—"

Vegeta never finished his sentence. A powerful fist from Superman Prime connected to Vegeta's gut. The Prince of Saiyan's eyes bulged out of their sockets and the super saiyan spit blood.

"TAKEN CARE OF ME? I'M SUPERMAN! NOBODY TAKES CARE OF ME, I TAKE CARE OF EVERYONE!"

"You mean, like, you take care everyone by looking out for them and making sure we are all okay? That's really thoughtful of you..." Goku asked innocently.

"No! No, no no!" Prime screamed. "I take care of everyone, by KILLING THEM!"

Vegeta was fortunate that Prime had taken the time to shout his nonsense and bothered to respond to Goku's jibe before attacking him again. Only after taking a direct hit did it register what kind of enemy he was facing. Despite Prime's utter lack of actual fighting skill against a superior fighter, he was scary strong. Had Vegeta not have already powered up to his maximum when that blow had hit him, he would have instantly died.

Slowed by the pain, though he was, Vegeta still easily dodged Prime's next attack. The saiyan went back on the offensive, but as he fought, pounding Kryptonian from multiple angles each moment, he felt his strength slowly fading. Unlike Goku, who had conditioned himself to be able to maintain his Super Saiyan 3 state for an extended period, just maintaining the transformation was rapidly draining Vegeta. With that one blow from Prime, his time remaining in that form had been cut to a tenth of what he would normally be able to sustain.

And just like that Vegeta's power ran out. A furious Superman Prime lined him up for a life-ending punch. Just before impact, though, Vegeta disappeared.

Goku stood with Vegeta on the far side of the moon, one hand on the prince's shoulders and another with two fingers on his own forehead. "I guess that makes us even in this universe, eh Vegeta?" Goku said with a smirk.

De-powered, Vegeta glowered at Goku. "Why did you interfere? I would have defeated him."

Goku nodded, "Sure you would have, Vegeta. But, hey, since I did interfere and you didn't die, let's say we fuse and clean this guy's clock once and for all?" Goku pulled out a pair of potarra earrings. A birthday present from the Superme Kai.

Vegeta looked at Goku as if he had grown a new head. "Are you mad? Those things cause a permanent fusion! Do you want to end up fused with me forever?"

Goku grinned and waved one hand to forestall his rival. "I've left standing instructions with Krillin that if you and I ever fused like that again that he's to use a wish from the dragon balls to get us back to normal as soon as the threat has passed. We'll be back to our old selves in no time."

The Prince of Saiyans crossed his arms. "It doesn't matter. A saiyan fights alone."

"Look, you already fought him alone. So did I. We both proved that we could outfight Superman Prime. We've both beaten him. It's only because of his regeneration that he's still around. But if you go out there and beat him again you'll still have to admit that he's stronger than you. Stronger than any saiyan. Not more powerful, but stronger. Or, we can put on the earrings and show him what real power is."

Vegeta hesitated.

"I'M GOING TO KILL YOU MONKEY SCUM! Your whole race is PATHETIC!" called the voice of Superman Prime from the other side of the moon.

"Give me the damned thing," Vegeta swore, snatching the earring from Goku's hand.

From the dark side of the moon a white burst of light flashed out and the most powerful saiyan of all time was reborn. Vegito.

"Where are you, you piece of—"

"Right here," came a voice from directly behind the Kryptonian. The dual voice rang in Prime's ears and for a moment, the Kryptonian felt fear. But then he remembered that he had come out the victor in their confrontations. He was Superman. They were just monkeys. He spun around to throw a punch.

Vegito caught the punch in one hand.

Eyes widening in shock, he threw a second punch with his other hand, much harder than the first. But this time the punch wasn't caught. Instead, his fist made contact with his new opponent's chin just as Vegito's hair turned golden and Super-Vegito's eyes widened into a fierce green. Superman Prime's fist stopped and Vegito's head didn't even move.

"Wow, that was strong," Vegito's voice mocked. "That would have killed Prince Vegeta or Kakkarot for sure." Then Vegito struck back, snapping Prime's head around and drawing blood. "But then, I'm something else entirely."

Prime backed away from the fused being in shock. "Im-Impossible!" Then the Kryptonian clenched his fists, his rage building. Eyes glowing a deep red and screamed and charged back towards blue and orange clad warrior. Once again Vegito grabbed Prime's hands with his own. The pair struggled there, each trying to overpower each other using brute strength. To Prime's absolute horror, he found his strength almost perfectly matched.

"Incredible," Vegito mused. "Even with Kakkarot's and Prince Vegeta's powers multiplied together your strength is still equal to mine." Then a cocky grin spread across the fused-saiyan's face. "But the difference between you and me," Vegito said in his odd dual voice as their arms struggled back and forth, "is that I can do THIS!"

And with that, Vegito twisted backwards with his hands still locked with Primes, his feet shooting up through the gap between them to connect powerfully with the Kryptonian's head. Prime flew backwards through space, only to be intercepted by a confident Vegito. But instead of hitting Prime with a powerful attack, Vegito just slapped him across the face, spinning the shocked Kryptonian.

It didn't take Vegito long to tire of his game of toying with Prime. While they were now physically matched in raw strength, the disparity between there skill levels remained the same. While Vegito could block Prime's attacks with equal force, something neither Goku nor Vegeta could have done even at Super Saiyan 3, Prime still had no defense against the saiyan martial artist's strikes. And now every blow that hit him was crippling.

With a strike to the throat, Vegito left Prime sputtering in the void of space.

"I would leave you to learn your lesson, but I know if I do that you'll only come back and hurt even more people. For your insult to the saiyan race and for the sake of the universe, you have to die."

Prime whimpered, his hands coming up pleadingly as he tried to choke out some words. He would never get to speak them. There was no mercy for him in Vegito's eyes. The super being extended one arm down towards the Kryptonian, then the fused-saiyan's hand flicked up to form a right angle with the rest of his arm.

"**FINAL FLASH!"**

The resulting explosion would have wiped out the galaxy if not for its concentration into that one small section of space. The universe ripped open from the power of the attack but the blinding white power burned through the tears in space-time. There was no escaping to any alternate time or phase.

Prime was gone.

With a quick instant transmission back to the Earth's moon, Vegito found the Superman of this world. "Hi, there, Kal-El. Problem solved. Now, let's go find that Lex Luthor character. He owes my Kakkarot half a big dinner. And now I'm eating for two!"

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><p><em><strong>Author's Note:<strong> This is an "alternate ending", a "what if", not a continuation of the story. I will be adding a few more of these, though most will be shorter than this one. I will also add another "Aftermath". But there is not time frame for the next one. It might be in a month. It might be in 3 months._


	13. Aftermath: Goku and Friends

**Aftermath: Goku and Friends**

"Oh, Daddy!" Chi-Chi sobbed on her father's big shoulders as the man held his daughter in his arms. "There's something wrong with Goku!"

"What? What is it?" the massive Ox King asked anxiously in his deep baritone. The man was a monstrous giant who had once wielded a giant axe and defended a burning castle, but he was a gentle man who would do anything for his daughter. And now his daughter was saying something had happened to her husband. His concern was deep and genuine.

"Ever since he came back from his last trip, he's been different. It's like he's another person. I don't know what to do!"

"Oh my!" the Ox King cried. "Goku is the most powerful fighter in the entire universe. If something is wrong with him then we're all in trouble!"

"Hi there!" called out a cheerful voice. Ox King and Chi-Chi turned around to see Goku standing there just behind them. He had just arrived via his Instant Transmission technique.

Goku looked like his normal self for the most part. He had his customary black eyes and sharp spiky hair that shot off in all directions and his normal friendly smile. But there was something not quite right about him.

He was wearing a tuxedo. The simple black suit fit him perfectly, sculpted to his more than impressive musculature. He even had a blue and white boutonniere pinned over the left breast of his coat. And he had a bouquet of flowers in his hands. They were exquisite.

"Ox King," Goku smiled and acknowledged his father-in-law. Then Goku saw the tears on Chi-Chi's face. His smile faded.

"Oh, Chi-Chi, I'm so sorry," he said. "You must have thought I forgot it was our anniversary?" Goku scratched the back of his head. "I guess I can't blame you; you are always the one who has to remind me of it every year. I'm so sorry if this has hurt your feelings. I really love you, Chi-Chi." Goku extended the flowers to her. "Here, these are for you."

Tentatively, she reached out and took the beautiful mix of red roses, white carnations, pink alstroemeria, bupleurum, and lilies. Tears flowed freely down her face as she accepted the beautiful flowers.

"I promise, Chi-Chi, I won't forget our anniversary again. In fact, I have tickets for the two of us to attend the West City Philharmonic Orchestra for tonight. I was just coming by to make sure you knew about our plans." Goku looked at his wife with an adoring expression. "I hope this is okay?"

The tall woman with raven black hair, strongest woman in the entire world, could only nod her head.

"I can see you are busy here with your dad, so I won't interrupt. I've actually got a bit of work to do over at Capsule Corporation before dinner and our concert. Oh, and don't prepare anything, I've made reservations for us. And I promise to be on my best behavior at the restaurant!" He looked at her, searchingly, "You don't mind if I go take care of things before tonight do you?"

Chi-Chi merely shook her head. Then Goku leaned in and gave her a kiss on the cheek before putting two fingers to his forehead to help center his concentration. Then he disappeared.

"Oh, Chi-Chi, that was so thoughtful of him!"

"I know!" Chi-Chi wailed. "What are we going to do? What's happened to my Goku?"

* * *

><p>.<p>

* * *

><p>Vegeta, mighty prince of the saiyans stalked through the restricted area of Capsule Corporation with murder on his mind. Kakkarot.<p>

Of course it was Kakkarot. It was always him. First he had defied and defeated him on Earth, reaching a level of power beyond even his ability by mastering the Kaioken technique. Then he had stolen Vegeta's birthright by being the first to ascend to the power of a super saiyan. Each time Vegeta had striven to rise up to his rightful place as master of the saiyan race, there was Goku, smugly reaching a new level of power or showing him up. And now this was the last straw.

He had taken his woman.

The prince couldn't bring himself to admit how hurt he was that Bulma would betray him with his rival. So, instead he chose to target the saiyan who had taken her. In truth, it was quite a saiyan thing to do. Take the woman of another and you take their pride. It was a challenge for supremacy that could only be answered by killing the offender. To do otherwise would be tantamount to a submission to the other. And Vegeta would never do that. He would rather die.

No, he'd rather kill.

Vegeta heard laughter coming from the room ahead. The prince looked in through the glass door and saw Goku's tuxedo lying there folded on a table. My word, they were so blatant about it that they were fooling around in a laboratory where anyone could walk in! Vegeta's fury redoubled.

"Kakkarot!" he yelled out as he entered the room.

Goku slid out from under some large contraption in the middle of the room. He was fully clothed, but wearing a Capsule Corporation work suit rather than his normal martial arts gear.

"Oh, hey Vegeta! Bulma was just showing me—"

_**CRACK!**_

Vegeta's fist impacted into Goku's face, sending the surprised saiyan across the room to smack into the wall behind him.

"VEGETA!" came the incensed yell from the blue haired woman who had just crawled out from beneath the same machine as Goku had, in time to see the father of her children sucker punch her oldest and best friend. Bulma was wearing a Capsule Corporation T-shirt and had her blue hair tied back in a pony tail.

"I'll deal with you later, woman," Vegeta snarled.

"Hey, what is this about, Vegeta?" Goku asked, now back on his feet holding up both of his hands defensively.

In reply, Vegeta charged across the intervening space and threw a brutal series of punches and kicks Goku's way. Goku, blocked and dodged, remaining completely on the defensive, though maneuvering into a better position in the room.

Vegeta wasn't getting anywhere like this, he knew. And this was no spar. Holding back would get him no additional satisfaction. He instantly powered up to super saiyan and threw another punch, hoping to catch his long time foe off-guard and score a damaging hit while Goku was still powered down.

It was too much to expect. Goku's hair flashed gold, there wasn't even a burst of power, and Goku caught the fist with ease.

"Knock this off, Vegeta!" Goku demanded. "There's sensitive electronics in here. Bulma's been working on this stuff—"

How dare he? _How dare he?_ Kakkarot tell him, the Prince of all Saiyans what to do? And talk about his woman like he had some right to defend her? **HOW DARE HE!**

"RAPID FIRE!"

"Not in my lab, buster!" Bulma screamed at him, but her protest fell on deaf ears.

Vegeta powered up even higher, bursts of energy pouring off of him. The area around the saiyan prince was ripped apart. And then Vegeta launched a torrent of reckless power towards Goku. Each ball of reddish gold energy would be more than enough to obliterate the entire building. Even if Goku dodged them all, or blocked them all, the devastation would turn the building into rubble. And there were thousands of the blasts, all fired near simultaneously.

Goku's eyes widened in shock. Vegeta hadn't shown this level of callous disregard for the lives of others since he had allowed Babidi to place him under his spell. Goku powered himself up as high as he could go without the shock of his power increase blowing the room apart. And then he disappeared.

Or, at least to any observer short of the Supreme Kai he disappeared. In actuality, Goku moved at near instantaneous speed. It would be an easy feat if he had dematerialized, but moving that fast while still saying solid was an incredible feat. Goku sped from one photon of deadly energy to the next. Rather than block it, though, he focused his ki into a sphere of black energy exactly opposite in charge, intensity, and nature to the incoming attack. Where the rapid fire attack looked like a wall of reddish orange energy, behind that explosive energy it looked like a wall of blackness. Every single blast sent was simply swallowed up by the black energy, leaving only a faint crackle of electricity.

Vegeta stared at Goku incredulously. What he had done was impossible!

"What is this about, Vegeta?" Goku asked, some heat in his voice now. Goku was a carefree person and very slow to take offense, but endangering the lives of innocents was a good way to get on his bad side.

"Don't try and play me for a fool, Kakkarot! Everyone knows you've been spending hours at a time with my woman here almost every day. Don't even try to deny it!"

"I don't deny it," Goku said easily. "I've been working with Bulma on a new invention. She really is a genius. I can barely keep up with her!"

Vegeta blinked multiple times to try and process what he just heard. "Don't be absurd, Kakkarot. There's no way I will believe you are coming over here to work on the machines. Nobody who knows you would believe that."

"It's true!" Bulma cried. "Goku's actually pretty bright. It was just that he had trouble paying attention and remembering things and—"

"You seriously expect me to believe that?" Vegeta yelled. "Kakkarot I can understand making up a ridiculous story like that, but you? I…I can't stand it! I am not such a moron! I am the Prince of all Saiyans! Now…feel my wrath!"

And that was when Vegeta started increasing in size and power. Goku, recognizing what was about to happen, flashed over to the shorter saiyan and teleported him outside the building and high up in the air. Just in time before his power exploded into the sky, his hair growing and lengthening. Seconds later, after the entire world finished shaking, Goku was staring at Vegeta's Super Saiyan 3 form.

The mighty prince laughed. "I did it! I have ascended to the next level!"

"Congratulations, Vegeta," Goku said calmly.

"Now I will take my rightful position as the most powerful. And I will crush you under my heel!"

"Well, we could do that, but then I think the fight would probably wipe out the Earth."

"Afraid, Kakkarot? You should be," he said, pointing an accusing finger at his rival. "You made a big mistake when you chose to take my woman. Nobody does that to me."

Goku sighed. "Actually, Vegeta, I'm still a lot more powerful than you. But you are strong enough that I can't be sure to protect everyone, even as a Super Saiyan 3. So, I guess the only way to do this is to show you what Bulma and I have been working on."

"Don't make me laugh, Kakkarot. Your idle threats mean nothing to me. A true saiyan would not attempt to talk his way out of a battle…"

"Who said anything about talking my way out of battle?" Goku smirked. "But I think once I show you what we've done, you'll be the one wanting to call off the fight."

And with that, Goku lifted his left hand up so Vegeta could see it. On Goku's wrist there was a silvery gauntlet. Goku pushed the button with a smirk.

Vegeta watched, curious as to what would happen. Goku began to glow in an odd, silvery light. After a few seconds, the light faded. Nothing had happened.

"That's it?" Vegeta asked mockingly. "You made a flashlight for your wrist?"

"Look a little bit closer, Vegeta," Goku replied smugly.

Vegeta looked at the other saiyan for several seconds. And then he saw it. There, swishing behind Goku, was a thick, furry, golden tail. Vegeta's eyes went wide. Goku had managed to regrow his tail!

"Now for part two. And I think you're going to love this, Vegeta." Goku pushed another button on his gauntlet. A ball of white light shot up into the sky.

Vegeta's eyes bulged. It was a Blutz wave ball! And Goku had a tail. Vegeta's eyes locked onto Goku.

Goku's smirk became a snarl. His great, green eyes became the blazing red of an oozaru. A great golden oozaru. And Goku began to grow. In seconds, the massive Golden Great Ape stood staring down at the form of Vegeta in his Super Saiyan 3 form.

Vegeta was about to make an attack, hoping to preemptively take out the beast's tail while it was still getting its bearings, when a voice stopped him. Goku's deep, baritone, oozaru voice.

"So, what do you think, little Vegeta? Not bad for a low level saiyan like me, don't you think?"

_Kakkarot maintained control of his mind during the transformation?_

"I learned quite a few tricks on my last trip, Vegeta. Want to see another one?"

Vegeta stood there in midair, shock making him unable to respond. And then he watched as the massive golden oozaru shrank back down to normal saiyan size. Well, almost. Now Goku was a full head taller than he had been. And his hair was long and black. And his power level was several times beyond what even Super Saiyan 3 was.

"You're naked," Vegeta said. It was the only thing he could think of.

"Yeah, the clothing thing is still annoying. Maybe I should get Bulma to make me some clothes that expand and shrink the way saiyan battle armor does." With a thought, Goku materialized some clothing for himself. Goku put one hand on Vegeta's shoulder.

"So, do we go back and apologize to Bulma for almost wrecking her lab and I go help my son with his homework, or do I pound you in the head a few times?" Goku asked jokingly.

Vegeta paused for several seconds. At an annoyed look from Goku, Vegeta snapped, "Get smashed in the head by someone ten times as powerful as me or apologize to that woman. It's a hard choice. I'm thinking!"

* * *

><p>.<p>

* * *

><p>"So, you really are my Goku?" Chi-Chi asked for the third time as they ate. The concert had been great and Goku even knew something about the songs. That had worried her until he sheepishly told her about the encounter with Vegeta. Hearing that Goku had fought with Vegeta had actually put Chi-Chi's mind at ease and gave Goku a chance to explain the differences she had been noting.<p>

"Yes, Chi-Chi. I'm the same goof you married all those years ago. Don't worry. I just have a much better memory now. When I fused with Superman I shared his life and thoughts. It was different than with Vegeta because we both liked each other, I think, so afterwards I kept part of his memories and ways of thinking."

"So, you can help Goten with his homework? And you like reading now?"

Goku shrugged. "Yeah, reading is kind of cool. I'd still rather fight and train, but you can't always do the thing you love most."

Chi-Chi smiled. She couldn't approve of fighting now because that was a bad example for her children, but she understood her man. It was good to hear he still was himself. She happily reached under the table and stroked Goku's tail. She had always liked his tail. She had been a bit sad when she found out he didn't have it anymore. "And you won't turn into a giant ape when you see a full moon?"

"Oh, no, I definitely will. At least, if I'm not in my Super Saiyan 4 form when I see it. But I won't destroy the Earth or kill anyone when it happens. It was the exposure to the Kryptonite that gave me the idea for the invention, though I still needed Bulma to actually make it."

"Oh, well, that's okay then."

Goku smiled and took another careful spoon of his dinner.

Chi-Chi looked at the man she loved, happy to have him in her life and back beside her. And his new found ability to do science at Capsule Corps and act like a polite gentleman when out on the town was, she had to admit, a definite plus. Still, she might miss his oafish side a bit. Chi-Chi looked at Goku appraisingly.

"So, how is the dinner?"

"Oh, tasty, for sure," he laughed, trying to hide his dissatisfaction with the small portion size.

"Would you like to do down to the West City Royal Restaurant to get their all-you-can-eat service?" she asked coyly.

Goku's eyes lit up. "You're the best Chi-Chi!" He threw down several thousand zini on the table, grabbed his wife in a hug, and put his finger on his forehead. "I'm totally starving!" he exclaimed before disappearing.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Author's Note: <strong>Hope you enjoyed this. Reviews are appreciated!_

* * *

><p>.<p> 


	14. Alternate Ending Two: First Evil Ending

**Author's Note:** _I always intended to include multiple alternate endings to the story, but just never got around to it. This being the 2__nd__ Anniversary of the publication of Rematch in Metropolis, I thought it would be an appropriate time to finally do so. This will be the first of two, short evil endings. Hope you enjoy them._

* * *

><p><strong>Evil Ending 1<strong>

Krillin, Goku, Superman, Green Lantern, the Flash, and the Martian Manhunter stood together in a circle within a small grassy area of Metropolis Park. It was time to put right all that had gone wrong with the world. Lex Luthor was once more in a maximum security prison, though perhaps he was getting off lucky as Goku and Superman had defended him from Neron. The teenager who had been called Superboy Prime was now being housed in a room at Arkham Asylum, courtesy of a phone call from Batman to the Commissioner and a psychiatric evaluation the results of which were never in doubt. Now with the Dragon Balls King Kai had sent along with Krillin, it was time to take care of the rest of it.

"So, you're telling me that the two of you were fused into one being?" Wally West was asking after hearing the explanation. "What was that like?"

Goku and Superman looked at each other for a moment, and then answered in perfect synchronization, "Super."

"And the two of you put together wiped the floor with Super-annoying Prime," John Stewart nodded approvingly. "Sounds like quite a handy technique. I also heard reports that the two of you cleaned up quite a few messes, including the one that had most of the Green Lantern Corps tied up."

Goku and Superman simply smiled in response.

"So, now what?" the Flash asked, looking at the demon and the seven strange golden balls on the ground. "We all play catch or something?"

"Now," Goku said excitedly, "we wish everyone who was killed as a result of my being brought to this universe back to life! Knowing what it felt like to be responsible for so many deaths…I start to get to understand what Vegeta must feel like all the time."

"Hey, Goku," Krillin interjected, "Why don't we wish that all the harm that was done as a result of you being brought here is undone? That would cover lives lost as well as property damage. A lot of people will be out of homes and businesses were destroyed when you, you know, went ape…"

Goku nodded his head, "Good thinking, Krillin! Okay, let's do this!"

With the dragon balls placed together in the park, Goku called out to the mighty dragon Shenron. Immediately, there was an awesome display of power as the seven dragon balls shot a golden beam of light up into the heavens. The sky above the city turned pitch dark and bolts of lightning struck the earth around the assembled heroes. The dragon balls answered with a release of brilliant crackling energy then levitated up into the air, glowing with a golden intensity that was all the more startling for the darkness outside. The glowing orbs released a torrent of power up into the sky and then seemed themselves to lose their form and merge with the golden power. The energy twined and twisted into the massive form of a giant twisting form of a massive dragon that towered over the village high up into the sky.

The dragon's deep voice cut through the air, its tone deep and ominous, shaking the ground and causing even the seasoned heroes of the Justice League to look on with awe. "**Why have you summoned me? State your wish, quickly!**" the great dragon demanded.

"Shenron, we wish that all the harm and damage that has come to this world since Goku arrived be undone!" Krillin yelled out, taking the lead in asking for the wish.

The great dragon's eyes flashed red, covering the entire world in its power. After a moment, the voice of the creature spoke up again. "**Your wish has been granted. Now, I go…**" And with that the form of the dragon exploded into a dozen golden balls that streaked across the sky in all directions.

The assembled heroes grinned to each other for just a second before they each shot off in pursuit of the shiny, golden dragon balls. In seconds all were collected again. Having a collection of heroes with such extreme levels of speed was handy that way.

And just like that, the world and all that was in it was made whole once more. Every building Metropolis to Philadelphia was restored to its previous condition and the streets returned to a pristine condition. Doctors in hospitals throughout the land witnessed miracles, as victims of both accidents and disasters recovered instantly. Most importantly, all those dead reappeared where they had fallen, looking around them in wonder.

Everything and everyone harmed since Goku's arrival was restored to its previous condition.

"Alright, I think that's it, guys! Don't think I overlooked anything." Goku yelled with a smile. "See ya all around!" Then with two fingers to his forehead, the powerful saiyan and his best friend crossed multi-versal boundaries to return home.

A few hundred miles away, there was another person not native to this universe who was feeling the effects of Krillin's wish. Clark Kent of a world called Earth Prime sat in his dark cell in Arkham Asylum staring at himself in a mirror.

His eyes glowed a fierce red and he gave a predatory smile.

* * *

><p>More Author's Notes: A few people have PM'd me with questions about some details in this story.<p>

Q: Why didn't Kalkar-El's outfit look like a Metamoran outift? When Gotenks and Gogeta's did.  
>A: I hadn't really paid attention to that detail, honestly. But, I like the idea of a mixed costume, so I stuck with it after the mistake was pointed out to me. Poetic license. :)<p>

Q: How could Goku and Superman use the fusion dance when they aren't of the same species?  
>A: I had Goku explain a bit of that in the last chapter. In order to fuse the two had to be physically compatible. My explanation was that Goku's control of his body improved to the point that he could match Superman's physical density and power level.<p>

Q: Why do Goku and Superman retain memories and skills from each other, but Vegeta and Goku did not? Why include that?  
>A: I liked the idea of some of the other rubbing off after the split, the mental part especially. My explanation was that while Goku and Vegeta reject each other's way of thinking, Superman and Goku were wholly accepting of one another. Thus, their fusion was more complete and when the fusion was undone what they learned and experienced together bled into both of them having retained some of the positive mental qualities of the other.<p>

Q: Why is Superman stronger than Goku? There's no way!  
>A: I took a very careful look at physical strength when writing this story and did a lot of research. Even giving Goku the best possible interpretation, even at SSJ4 from DBGT, modern Superman would be at least 1000x physically stronger. And Superboy PrimeSilver Age Superman even much stronger than that.

But it all comes down to who is writing it. Both DC and DBZ universes are very inconsistent in their powers. It's really easy to interpret either character if very different ways. Goku was meant to be a hero who surpasses any limit. He regularly dwarfs "super" characters, gods, etc. Superman is similar in that given a particular story he can do pretty much anything the writer wants.

Q: Superman is only vulnerable to kyrptonite, magic, and the red sun. Your story is stupid.  
>A: Modern Superman has been knocked out by flying into a moon to make it explode. He has also been "killed' by pure strength (Doomsday) without the presence of either of those three. There is a limit to his invulnerability. Superboy Prime was nearly killed by an explosion when battling Monarch-injured, but surviving by slipping "between universes." I've never seen the upper limit of Silverage Superman, but Prime is supposed to be on SA Supe's level, so it would make sense to assume that there is some upper limit for him, too.<p>

Q: You idiot! Don't you know ki is magic! He'd blow Superman up!  
>A: In some stories, ki is counted as magic. However, in both DBZ and DC Universe, it appears to be different. Consider the difference between Babidi's magic and the Z fighter's skills. In DC Universe, Superman has fought fighters like "Karate Kid" who use ki. It hits him harder than normal attacks, but does not bypass his invulnerability so far as I saw. So, ki will knock Superman around, but does not damage him like magical attacks would.<p>

In the end I don't claim this is the only way these fights could go. I only think my way of depicting this encounter is one of several reasonable ways it could be conceived. If you disagree with something, that's your right. You can write your own story. :)


End file.
